WESTERN MANUSCRIPTS AND MINIATURES
MONDAY 7 DECEMBER 2020
WESTERN MANUSCRIPTS AND MINIATURES
MONDAY 7 DECEMBER 2020 | 2pm
AUCTION FORMAT: LIVE ONLINE AUCTION NO. 14297 BLOOMSBURY AUCTIONS: This is a live online auction with an auctioneer. Bidding is available online, by 16-17 Pall Mall telephone or commission (absentee) bids. If not bidding online, please contact St James's SPECIALISTS: Bloomsbury Auctions or Dreweatts to register all commission bids or telephone London Dr Timothy Bolton bids by 11am (local time) on Monday 7 December. SW1Y 5LU [email protected]
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3 Lot 1
1 Two small cuttings from a commentary on Luke 10, in Latin, with a large decorated initial, manuscripts on parchment [probably Italy, ninth century] Lot 2 Two rectangular cuttings, recovered from reuse after the Middle Ages on the spine of a later book, each with remains of single column of 13 lines of a good Carolingian minuscule, with an et-ligature used integrally within words, and strong st- and ct-ligatures, remnants of red rubrics, one large initial, perhaps ‘B’ (if so, probably opening “Bene has utrasque vitas duae ...”, ch. 26 of Paterius’ commentary), in intertwined bands of red and blank parchment 2 on black grounds, with terminals ending in stylised penwork foliage sprays, scuffs, holes, tears to edges and other damage concomitant with recovery from Leaf from a Sacramentary, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [Italy (probably west-central region), eleventh century reuse in a later binding, overall fair condition, 77 by 43mm. and 72 by 39mm. (perhaps early or even c. 1000)]
The remaining text here is slight, but most probably can be identified as the commentary of St. Paterius on the New Testament (Liber Single leaf, with single column of 20 lines of a finely written Romanesque bookhand, using a thin and precise nib, with pronounced ‘fish-tailing’ to some testimoniorum novi testamenti), in a variant form to that edited by Migne (PL. LXXIX, 1849, col. 1062, chs. 25-26, with the last word of line 1-line ascenders, a strong st- and ct-ligature and surprisingly the use of et-ligature integrally within words (usually a Carolingian feature, perhaps carried over 2 and line 3 of the smaller fragment identifiable as parts of ch. 25, separated in Migne’s edition by 7 further lines that are not here, and the last 3 from an earlier exemplar), bright red rubrics, initials in simple red with baubles mounted in their bodies or in brown ink and infilled with red sections lines of the cutting with the initial clearly identified as part of ch. 26). Paterius was a friend and secretary to Gregory the Great, who died in 606. (most probably following models of earlier tenth-century exemplar), recovered from reuse in later binding and hence with folds, small spots, scuffs, holes His work was popular in the Early Middle Ages, especially so during the Carolingian Renaissance when it was used by Hrabanus Maurus. and a rust mark from a paperclip once affixed at top on one side, overall good condition and on heavy parchment, 203 by 136mm. This identification is important as Paterius’ text survives in its original format only for the section from Genesis to the Song of Songs, with the later parts partly recorded in the twelfth century by Alulphus de Tournai in his Gregorialis (the so-called pseudo-Paterio C), an anonymous The script and initials here have features that are somewhat incongruous in the eleventh century, but not unheard of (see Schøyen sale in our abbreviation from Wisdom onwards (the pseudo-Paterio A), and a revision by Bruno monachus (the pseudo-Paterio B). Migne’s edition was a rooms, 8 July 2020, lots 31 & 32), and perhaps were carried over from a Carolingian exemplar. The presence of St. Hermes among the prayers is collage of these various versions. These fragments would appear to be a witness to the otherwise lost part of the work on the New Testament, rare for Italy, and suggests an origin in the region around Rome where he was celebrated, or Spoleto, Acquapendente and perhaps to the north, predating all other witnesses by some three centuries. Lucca, who each had relics.
£500-700 £1,200-1,800
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3 4 Leaf from a Romanesque Lectionary, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [Italy (probably Montecassino or Naples), Palladius of Cappadocia, Historia Lausiaca, in Latin translation, cutting from a large leaf, decorated manuscript on parchment eleventh or twelfth century] [France, mid- to late twelfth century]
Single leaf, with 22 lines of two sizes of a square and angular bookhand, without biting curves, bright red rubrics, tall capitals touched in pale yellow Top half of a leaf, with remains of 30 lines in a good and professional early Gothic bookhand, written with a few biting curves and above topline, remains wash, three coloured initials in interlocking and parallel acanthus leaf fronds in dark blue, pale green and bright red, two of these held together by white of a large red initial and a red rubric on reverse, recovered from a binding and hence with stains, discoloured areas, small holes, tears and folds, much penwork bands and with simple coloured leaves at their terminals, recovered from a binding (with sixteenth-century penwork title on spine) and hence scuffed on reverse, overall fair and presentable condition, 234 by 304mm. trimmed at edges with losses to margins, scuffs, small holes, folds and small sections of paper adhering, overall fair and presentable condition, 265 by 155mm. This text is one of the most important witnesses to the lives of the Desert Father saints. It was written by Palladius of Galatia around 419-420 at the request of Lausus, chamberlain to the court of Emperor Theodosius III. Following a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the author travelled into The initials here with their tri-coloured lappets and forms related to white-vine initials, but quite distinct from them, are striking in that their the Nitrian desert, where he spent nine years with Macarius and Evagrius. It was fundamentally popular among monastic readers, and A. closest comparables are in manuscripts written in Beneventan minuscule in Montecassino or Naples (see F. Avril and Y. Załuska, Manuscrits Wellhausen records approximately 110 extant manuscripts, all in institutional ownership. The fragment here contains a large part of ch. 38 and enlumines d’origine italienne, I, 1980, nos. 30 and 31 for eleventh-century examples, with later c. 1100 and twelfth-century examples in nos. the opening of ch. 39, on the figures Evagrius and Pior, and thus for much of the text here this is an eye-witness account of Evagrius’ life. 32 and 34). Manuscripts were written in mainstream Romanesque hands in such Beneventan centres (see that sold in our rooms, 8 July 2015, lot 13), and this is probably another example of palaeographic and decorative cross-over with a scribe from Montecassino or Naples £1,000-1,500 experimenting in Romanesque Carolingian minuscule.
£1,500-2,000
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5 6 θ Leaf from a Glossed Gospel of Luke, in Latin, manuscript Single leaf from a monumental Biblical codex, with on parchment [probably Italy, second half of twelfth century Revelation 18-19, in Latin, manuscript on parchment, in situ (probably after c. 1180)] on the binding of a printed copy of Valentino Mangionio, Astri Lot 7 inextincti theoricae (Cologne, 1639) [France, twelfth century] Single leaf, with single column of 17 lines of text (Luke 10:10-16) in an excellent early Gothic bookhand with biting curves, one simple red initial, Large and tall leaf, turned 90 degrees and reused to cover the front and 7 extensive gloss in smaller versions of same in columns in both margins, back boards of a later printed book, with edges folded over the boards there Cutting from a monumental Missal with large painted initial, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [Italy (probably recovered from a binding and hence with scuffs, stains, wormholes and and with a further strip of white parchment used to cover the spine (this Tuscany), twelfth century (probably middle third, before c. 1180)] folded-in edges, overall fair condition, 240 by 140mm. now lifting at the base), the Biblical manuscript in double column of 23+17 visible lines (with 5-6 further lines evidently obscured by parchment strip; Cutting from the top of a large leaf, with a large initial ‘N’ (opening “Nativitas beatissimi ...”, reading for the Feast of the birth of the Virgin, 8 The hand here has features that indicate a date in the last two decades the text) in a good and accomplished early Gothic bookhand, capitals in September), in pale green, red and blue bands, enclosed within painted foliage in same colours, opening words of readings in ornamental capitals, bright of the twelfth century, while the form of the gloss (in parallel columns double penstrokes, some discolouration overall, line of damage to back red rubric, remains of double column of 29 lines of a good Romanesque bookhand, with pronounced fishtailing to some ascenders, a strong st-ligature either side of the main text) suggests a date before c. 1160. However, board, but overall in fair and presentable condition, visible parts of the leaf: and without biting curves, reused on a later bookbinding and so with folds, areas of discolouration, scuffs and small holes, overall presentable condition, our knowledge of the dates relevant to the form of the gloss come 303 by 210mm. 255 by 330mm. from studies of Parisian books, and it appears that older practises may have continued later in the twelfth century in Italy (see L. Smith, The printed book on which this handsome leaf survives was The painted initial here finds close parallels in those in books produced in Tuscany in the last decades of the eleventh century through to The Glossa ordinaria: The Making of a Medieval Bible, 2009, p. 154; and deaccessioned in the early twentieth-century from a French library: the mid-twelfth century (cf. the Dialogues of St. Gregory produced in Siena c. 1200: reproduced in K. Berg, Studies in Tuscan Twelfth Century Les Enlumineres, TM 763, and references there to the Italian glossed “Dupe” and “d 107269” written in pencil of that date inside front Illumination, 1968, no. 165; a Homiliary produced in Arezzo in the last quarter of the twelfth century: ibid., no. 59; a copy of the Canonical books at Harvard, Houghton Library in L. Light, The Bible in the Twelfth board and on first endleaf, and endleaves at front and back stamped Epistles produced in Tuscany in the last quarter of the twelfth century: reproduced in Manuscrits enluminés d’origine italienne, I, 1980, no. 90; Century, 1988, nos. 31, 33, 34). “Annulé” in purple ink. and a Homiliary produced in the same region at the end of the twelfth century: ibid. no. 91).
£300-500 £600-800 £1,000-2,000
8 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 9 8 10 Bifolium from an early choirbook, in Latin, decorated Bifolium from a medieval Latin schoolbook manuscript on parchment [Eastern France (most probably with the Distichs of Cato, and the Eclogues of Poligny or vicinity), thirteenth century] Theodulus, with extensive commentary, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [France, late thirteenth or Two conjoined leaves, each with single column of 11 lines of a distinctive early fourteenth century] Gothic hand with pronounced fishtailing to ascenders and a final ‘e’ with a tongue, accompanied by music on a 4-line pale red stave (rastrum: Two conjoined leaves, with double column of text in two sizes 10mm.), capitals touched in red, pale red rubrics, simple 2-line initials of script (leaf 1: Ecologues, lines 77-108 & leaf 2: Cato, Distichs, in red with pale green scrolling penwork, or blue with red penwork, one last two lines of book III, and book IV, prol. lines 1-18; note near-contemporary short marginal addition of music, reused as binding these same texts along with other moral teaching texts can on later account book and hence with trimming to corners, folds, cockling be found in a small number of other manuscripts: see G.L. and scrawled sixteenth-century inscriptions (including “160” twice, “R Hamilton in Modern Philology VII, 1909, pp. 10-11), main text 236” and identifying the estate concerned as “ressortz de Poligny” dated in rounded early university hand, commentary in tiny and 1615-18), overall presentable condition, each leaf 260 by 198mm. much abbreviated version of same, main texts in Latin verse, small spots and stains, losses at edges, cockling, small holes From a handsome medieval codex, produced in a region of France and tears, recovered from a binding and hence with losses to Lot 8 outside of the main scribal centres of the period. reverse where once pasted to a board, spaces left for initials Lot 10 (one on reverse filled with simple arms in trick), total size 198 £500-700 by 288mm.
Both of these texts were in common usage in the Middle Ages in the teaching of Latin. The Distichs of Cato (Dionysius Cato, quite apart from the Classical Roman author) was composed as a collection of proverbial wisdom couplets in the third or fourth century AD. The Eclogues of Theodulus was once thought to be a late Roman work, but its genre belongs to the Carolingian Renaissance and its use of leonine hexameters distinctive enough to point to the region of Reims, and is has been attributed to the Saxon theologian and friend of Walahfrid Strabo, Gottschalk of Orbais. It is a moral argument between the figures of a shepherd Pseustis (falsehood) and a shepherdess Alithia (truth). It is recorded in 121 medieval manuscripts (see Osternacher’s edition of 1902, pp. 13-23), but is rare to the market.
£700-900
11 Lot 9 Peter Lombard, Libri quatour sententiarum, in Latin, 9 decorated manuscript on parchment [northern France Fragment of a manuscript of the works of John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa, in Latin translation of Burgundio of Pisa, (Paris), thirteenth century] manuscript on parchment [probably France, thirteenth century] Single leaf, with single column of 31 lines of a tiny university script Cutting from a bifolium (trimmed at head, foot and one vertical edge), with remains of double columns of 23 lines of a fine university hand, yellowed on (text from II, end of distinctio 24 to opening of 25), capitals touched reverse, small holes, scuffs and spots, a few folds at corners, else fair condition, 302 by 114mm. in red, red rubrics, initials in red or blue with contrasting penwork, running titles and versal numbers in alternate red or blue capitals, The term polymath is given to many undeserving men, but accurately describes John Damascene, a Christian monk who lived from c. 675 to 749, one original flaw to parchment in upper corner with contemporary making great contributions to law, theology, philosophy and music as well as being named one of the fathers of the Eastern Church. The cutting repair, sixteenth- or seventeenth-century numbers added in margins here includes parts of ch. 8 of the author’s Introductio dignitatem elementaris, on “genere et specie” (on humans and various types of animals), marking chapters, modern pencil “98” and “2” in outer corners, summarising part of Aristotle’s work on categories, as well as parts of De duabus in Christo voluntatibus. Both were chapters of John Damascene’s occasional small spots, else excellent condition and on fine and thin De fide orthodoxa, the third part of his ‘Fountain of Wisdom’ (pege gnoseos), a compilation and epitome of the works of the great ecclesiastical parchment with notably wide and clean margins, 227 by 164mm. writers who preceded him, that became the principal textbook of Greek Orthodox theology and had profound influence on medieval Latin thought. It appeared in only two medieval Latin translations, that of the Greek scholar and Italian jurist Burgundio of Pisa (as here) made in the The parent manuscript of this leaf was an appealing university 1150s, and Robert Grosseteste in the 1230s. The work was fundamental to the scholastic movement, and at least 120 manuscripts of Burgundio’s copy of one of the fundamental textbooks of medieval translation are now recorded, as well as several early post-incunabula printings. However, these manuscript witnesses are predominantly late, theological study. From the early thirteenth century until the with none of the twelfth century, and only a handful of the thirteenth century surviving (I. Backus in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld close of the Middle Ages, no other work was as commented on, Institutes, 49, 1986, p. 211). with the single exception of the Bible.
£600-800 £600-800 Lot 11
10 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 11 Lot 13 13 Leaf from the Psalms from a finely decorated Bible, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Italy (probably Bologna), late thirteenth or early fourteenth century]
Single leaf, with double column of 50 lines in a rounded Italian Gothic bookhand (Psalms 119-127), a few tiny contemporary corrections to text, one-line initials in red or blue, 2- and 3-line initials in same with ornate scrolling penwork in contrasting colours, referencing system comprising of “XIII” in alternate red and blue capitals in upper outer corner followed by a small red triangle, these above a blue geometric shape formed from an interconnected square and rectangle with long and thin extensions at two of their extremities, tiny hairline guide-letters underneath coloured initials, small splits to outer Lot 12 upright edge of leaf, a small stain in margin, heavy grain pattern on verso, somewhat roughly cut from parent volume (as common with leaves from this 12 manuscript) and folded twice at upper inner corner, else good condition, 356 by 240mm. (written space: 233 by 147mm.) Leaf from the ‘Interpretations of Hebrew Names’ from the St Albans Abbey Bible, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (Paris), c. 1330] Three other leaves from this large and handsome Biblical manuscript were offered in our rooms, 6 July 2017, lots 59 and 60, and 10 July 2018, lot 52. A few others have emerged with Joern Guenther (two presently on his website, identified as in the Bolognese ‘Primo Stile’, and attributed Single leaf, with triple column of 46 lines in a fine Gothic bookhand (entries for ‘e’, from ‘Elcham’ to ‘Elud’), single catchword at base of verso, red to the circle of the First Master of the Infortiatum dating c. 1270-1300, now Paris, BnF., ms. lat. 4476), as well as two or three others in European rubrics, one-line initials in alternate blue and liquid gold with contrasting penwork, line-fillers in zigzagging foliate designs in same colours, apparent collections. All leaves to emerge thus far have been from the Old Testament, and the parent volume was probably the first of two volumes. price “15/” in pencil at foot of recto, tiny dealer’s mark “15K1079” in pencil at lower inner corner of verso, a few spots, slight cockling at edges, folds to corners, else good condition, 276 by 188mm. What is most notable here is the complex form of reference system made up from Roman numerals and rectangles or squares in the upper outer corners of these leaves. As one of the leaves presently with Joern Guenther contains the final part of Genesis and has the number “I” From an incomplete Bible sold at Sotheby’s, 6 July 1964, lot 239, to the dealer and book-breaker Philip Duschnes, who dispersed it. Then at its head, and that for Joshua offered in our 2017 catalogue (lot 60) has “VI”, we might suppose that the numbers correspond to the order identified in 1981 as from the medieval library of St Albans Abbey, Herts., and perhaps to be identified as one of “duas bonas biblias” acquired of the books of the Bible. However, it is more difficult to perceive a pattern when we look at the interconnected shapes and their thin arms. by Abbot Michael de Mentmore (C. de Hamel in Fine Books and Book Collecting, 1981, pp. 10-12). However, a number of leaves, including These appear in different numbers and combinations, and their evolution is not apparently simple or straightforward (compare the single blue whatever remained of the Interpretations of Hebrew Names, from which the present leaf comes, appear to have been separated from the rectangle on the Genesis leaf; with the square and a rectangle on the Joshua leaf offered by us in 2017; the two rectangles and a square on the volume before its appearance at Sotheby’s in 1964, with two leaves acquired by E.H. Dring (1864-1928, one reappearing in Quaritch, cat. 1036, Job leaf sold by us in 2018; and the simpler two rectangles on the present leaf). To the best of our knowledge this referencing system is not 1984, no. 76). commonly attested elsewhere, and is deserving of further study.
£1,000-1,500 £500-700
12 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 13 14 θ Lot 14 Cutting from a monumental Old Testament codex, in Latin, manuscript on parchment, in situ on the binding of a copy of Von der Fürsichtigkeit Gottes, zehen Predigen dess uralten und christlichen Lehrers Theodoreti, auss griechischer Sprach in Latein gebracht durch Herrn Rudolphen Walther (St Gallen: Leonhart Strauss, 1582) [France, fourteenth century]
Large cutting from the top of a leaf, with remains of double column of 13 lines (Ecclesiastes 3:20-4:1 & 4:6-9) of a fine and angular Gothic bookhand with pronounced wedges at feet of descenders, decorative hairline strokes to extremities of some letters and notable lateral compression, capitals touched in red, versal initials and running title in alternate red and blue, one large blue initial ‘U’ (opening “Verti me ad alia ...”, Ecclesiastes 4) encased in red penwork with long trailing penwork fronds and red 5-petalled flower-heads, some patches of discolouration and wear concomitant with being in situ on binding, overall presentable condition, each board 190 by 154mm.
From a fine and notably large lectern Bible.
£500-700
Lot 16
16 Johannes de Freiburg, leaves from an extremely large codex of Summa confessorum, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [France, early fourteenth century]
Six leaves (including a bifolium: single text leaves from book III, bifolium from book II, plus single leaf with part of capitula lists for book I), with double column of 51 lines of a fine rounded early Gothic bookhand, quotations underlined in red, red rubrics, paragraph marks in alternate red or blue, book and quaestio nos. in red and blue initials at head of some leaves, small initials in red or blue with contrasting penwork, larger initials variegated in red or blue Lot 15 15 with elaborate penwork infill and penwork extensions in margin trailing into long whip-like penstrokes, leaf with capitula list with chapter nos. in red set Cutting from a copy of the Corpus Juris Civilis, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France (probably Paris), in margins and corresponding chapter titles opening with a capital touched in red, reused on account books of second half of sixteenth century and early thirteenth century] seventeenth century (one leaf here with date ‘1623’) and with scrawls and additions of that date, recovered from use on account books and hence with some discoloured areas, folds horizontally across middle, tears to edges, slight cockling, but overall in good and presentable condition, 370 by 290mm. Top half of a bifolium (one half leaf, plus a few mm. of corresponding sister leaf), these bisected horizontally, main text in double column with 26 lines remaining, capitals touched in hairline penstrokes, initials in red with hairline penwork decoration, vivid red rubrics, running titles in alternate blue and John of Freiburg, a Dominican, composed his gigantic Summa confessorum in 1297-98, as an extension to the works of Raymond of Pennafort red capitals (‘L’ ‘IIII’), long tall initials in blue with red penwork, a few manicula marks (one with a red penwork extension in margin), four human and William of Rennes’ gloss on that work. It was very popular in the Middle Ages, and survives in approximately 170 recorded manuscripts (T. faces picked out in marginal penwork, three initials in blue heightened with white penwork, enclosing foliage on coloured grounds and with tail enclosing a Kaeppeli and E. Panella, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum medii aevi, 1970-93, ii. 430-6 and iv. 152). A single leaf and part of another bifolium from gold bezant, gloss encasing main text on all untrimmed sides, trimming at outer upright edge clipping away a few characters from edge of column of gloss, the same parent codex was sold in our rooms, 2 July 2019, as part of lot 24. a few other contemporary marginal additions, some scuffs and folds, a few small stains, else good condition, 280 by 188mm. £1,000-2,000 £500-700
14 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 15 18 Leaf from a Processional, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [France or Low Countries, c. 1400]
Single leaf, with single column of 7 lines of text in a good Gothic bookhand, with a distinctive ligature of the ‘ve’ in ‘Ave’ where this word begins the line so that the e is formed from a singled bowed stroke on the side of the ‘v’, penwork cadels to descenders in lowermost line, these text lines with music on a 4-line red stave (rastrum: 9mm.), rubrics and simple initials in red, excellent condition, 128 by 90mm.
£100-200
Lot 18
19 θ Bifolium from a large and handsome Missal, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment, in situ on the binding of a manuscript record of a legal dispute in Chalon, Burgundy [central-eastern France (probably Chalon-sur- Saône or vicinity), fifteenth century]
Large bifolium, reused as a later limp parchment Lot 17 binding and hence trimmed at top with a probable 17 loss of the upper margin and a line or so there, Leaf from a finely illuminated Book of Hours, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [England (perhaps London or Oxford), text in double column of 32 lines of a good and fifteenth century (probably 1410s or 1420s)] angular late Gothic bookhand, capitals touched in pale yellow, red rubrics, 2-line initials in red Single leaf, with large initial (near half page in height) ‘D’ (“Deus in adiutorium ...”, reading for Nones from Hours of the Cross) in blue with white or blue, some seventeenth-century scrawls in penwork, enclosing fleshy and bulbous acanthus leaves on burnished gold grounds, further acanthus leaf sprays terminating in coloured foliage and bas-de-page upside down (so in alignment with gold bezants in three margins, initial letter of the word ‘Deus’ enclosing a tiny dog’s face poking out its tongue, two large illuminated initials in blue and manuscript codex within this bifolium), paper dark rose-pink grounds heightened with white penwork, smaller initials in blue or liquid gold with contrasting penwork surrounds, red rubrics, capitals pastedowns covering inner sides of parchment touched in red, 14 lines in two sizes of a fine English Gothic bookhand, slight discolouration in places from surface dirt adhering to rough surface of leaves, cockling and small holes, else good condition, parchment, else fine condition, 180 by 126mm. 280 by 200mm.; enclosing a booklet of 58 leaves of parchment recording the details of a legal dispute The simplicity of the decoration here, with mirrored leaves above and below simple foliage strands, shaded with heavy white strokes, points in approximately 23 lines of italic hand, occasional to English illumination in the opening decades of the fifteenth century (see K.L. Scott, Dated & Datable English Manuscript Borders, 2002, pp. armorial inkstamps with motto “Dix sols de Roole 28-35). The trumpet-like flowers and curled leaves decorated with lines of tiny white dots indicate a date in the 1410s or 1420s (ibid. pp. 42-43, Bourgogne et Bresse”, this dated September 1689 recording a London or Westminster production of 1410-13; and pp. 52-53, with an Oxford product of 1429). Lot 19 £700-900 £2,000-3,000
16 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 17 Lot 21
21 Three leaves from a large Choir Psalter, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Germany (Würzberg), end of fifteenth century (probably dated 1499)]
Three leaves, each with single column of 23 lines of angular late Gothic script, accompanying music in hufnagelschrift notation, capitals touched in red, rubrics in red, initials in alternate red or blue, one leaf with folded leather tab pasted to outer edge, eighteenth-century foliation at head of rectos in middle of text column and modern pencil annotations (see below), some small original flaws, discolouration at foot and edges (with small amounts of ink flaking Lot 20 from text at foot), else fair and presentable condition, each approximately 493 by 350mm. 20 Leaf from a large illuminated Missal, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Italy, fifteenth century] These are hitherto unrecorded leaves from a grand Choir Psalter of St. Stephen’s, Würzberg (the house founded c. 1013, secularised in 1803, thereafter becoming a Protestant church and school), dispersed by the wife of the ‘biblioclast’ Otto Ege from 1947 onwards (here the leaves are Single leaf, with single column of 29 lines of an excellent Italian late Gothic bookhand, capitals touched in very pale yellow wash and often decorated foliated ‘66’, ‘95’ and ‘103’ in an eighteenth-century hand, with the first of those with a lengthy pencil inscription by Mrs Ege at its foot and the inside their bodies with double hairline diagonal penstrokes, red rubrics, blue paragraph marks, one-line initials in red or blue, 2-line initials in same price in USD “20 00”). Leaves from it were numbered 42 in Ege’s portfolios, and other leaves have been recently traced in the Meyer Library with contrasting penwork infills and surrounds, one illuminated initial in pink, yellow, blue and green acanthus leaves, enclosing a single twist of in Missouri State University (see Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, 2013, p. 133). A forthcoming article by Scott Gwara and Timothy Bolton notes similar foliage, all on brightly burnished gold grounds and with large bezants with frames of penwork dots in margin, some folds causing slight damage the rediscovery of a sister volume, the name of scribe as the prolific Frater Matheus Hartung of St. Stephen’s, Würzberg, and the distinguished to individual letters, ink on verso flaked away in large places, but text legible, overall fair and presentable, 350 by 254mm. provenance of the parent volume of Ege’s leaves through the collections of Leander van Ess (1772-1847) and Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872).
£300-500 £1,200-1,800
18 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 19 Lot 22 Lot 23 22 Leaf from the Psalter with Passion Sequences copied by Pietro Ursuleo of Capuo, in Latin, opulently illuminated manuscript 23 on parchment [southern Italy (Naples), c. 1460] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, in Latin, a leaf and a book-board with fragments and offset from a lost leaf, both from a fine humanist manuscript on parchment [Italy, second half of fifteenth century] Single leaf, with single column of 19 lines of a fine and accomplished humanist hand (with Psalm 29:7-30:12), faded red rubrics, dark blue and liquid gold capitals, one illuminated initial ‘I’ (opening “In te domine spera ...”) enclosed within white vinework on blue, green and red grounds, later pencil Fragment of a leaf (trimmed at three outer edges with losses of a few lines at top and bottom and half of outermost column), and a pasteboard with small marks “£2” “MS 231”(perhaps those of Tregaskis, see below) in upper outer corner, stains and splashes (with some damage to text in lowermost three fragments from other leaves from same parent manuscript still adhering and another page from same remaining in offset ink on the board, the main leaf lines), lower outer corner with old water damage (see below) causing offset of text from previous leaf and loss of corner (edges now professionally with remains of double column of 48 lines of a skilled humanist hand (with end of II, quaestio XIX, articulus IV and opening of articulus V), paragraph conserved and original corner-piece enclosed loose with leaf), overall presentable condition, 171 by 26mm. marks in red, underlining in red, large initials in red or pale green with elaborate red penwork, all recovered from a binding and hence with scuffs, stains and tears, overall fair condition, 233 by 184mm. and 245 by 172mm. The parent manuscript was one of two sister volumes (the other now Trinity College, Cambridge, MS O.7.46), copied by the scribe Pietro Ursuleo (d. 1483), bishop of Satarino and elevated on his deathbed to archbishop of Santa Severina, and perhaps illuminated by Matteo Felice The importance of Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) for medieval thought cannot be overestimated, and as a champion of reason and scholasticism or a member of his workshop. It must have been copied for a patron in Ravenna, and later was in the possession of John Boykett Jarman (d. his work underpins much of Western philosophy since. This work was his magnum opus and was composed between 1265 and his death as a 1864), and probably damaged by the flood that affected his manuscript collection (the parent manuscript was his sale in Sotheby’s, 13 June vast compendium of the teachings of the whole Church. The present copy, while now only a relic of the parent manuscript, was once a grand 1864, lot 161). The book was still intact in 1913 (Tregaskis cat. 743, no. 510), but beginning to be broken in the years that followed (initially copy elegantly written in the new humanist script of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The use of this script denotes the respect Tregaskis cat. 777, 1916, no. 81, 4 leaves). Other leaves are recorded in Margaret Manion and C. de Hamel., Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts shown to this work by the humanists, as well as most probably the wealth and influence of its original owner. in New Zealand Collections, 1989, no.89, with the colophon leaf in Canberra, National Library of Australia, MS 4052. £500-700 £1,000-1,500
20 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 21 25 Lot 25 Marsilius of Inghen, Quaestiones on Aristotle, De generatione et corruptione, in Latin, manuscript leaves on paper, later reused to support a fabric covered item, perhaps an embroidered binding [northern Italy or southern France, opening decades of fifteenth century]
Five leaves, trimmed at their head or foot with losses of a few lines there, remains of double column of approximately 46 lines of a squat and scrawling Lot 24 late Gothic hand, with many abbreviations and lines packed densely together, marginalia by near-contemporary hand drawing readers’ attention to 24 individual parts of the text, watermark of a simple bell with three lappets at head and simple clapper at foot, part of a wide spread of such symbols in Jacobus de Cessolis, Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium super ludo scacchorum, sermons using the game of Briquet with a distribution predominantly across northern Italy and southern France throughout the fourteenth and early fifteenth century (Briquet, nos. chess as their basis, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [Italy, c. 1400] 3911-85), the leaves with prickmarks showing they were stitched at one point with parallel borders around edges and a large cross in middle (this cross 120mm. high; two leaves without this cross and the innermost border), few tears to a edges, small spots and stains, else fair and presentable condition on Bifolium, each leaf with double column of 29 lines (here including the end of the chapter on knights, and the opening of the chapter on rooks), capitals thick and heavy paper, 235 by 235mm. touched in red, red and blue paragraph marks, single red rubric (“De Rochis”), one large simple red initial with blank parchment design inside its body, continuous text and first leaf with quire signature “iiii” thus this innermost bifolium from a quire, nineteenth-century pencil foliation ‘1’ and ‘2’, a few Provenance: contemporary marginalia and simple manicula and ‘clover-leaf’ marks, darkened at edges, a small smudge, else excellent condition, 250 by 179mm. Recovered from reuse perhaps in an embroidered binding or piece of padded ecclesiastical furniture.
This text was composed somewhere in the last quarter of the thirteenth century by Jacobus de Cessolis, a Dominican friar from Lombardy, Text: as a sermon collection using the game of chess as a metaphor to discuss the relationships between a king and the various nobles of his Marsilius of Inghen was born around 1340 in Nijmegen. He took up office at the University of Paris from 1362, where he was also rector (1367 kingdom. As a part of this use of such a complicated metaphor, the author had to give a lengthy and detailed description of the game itself, and 1371), and served as the University’s delegate at the court of Pope Urban VI. He seems to have turned his back on Paris after the Great thus recording the form of the game in the thirteenth century. This secondary function of explaining the game, rather than the moralising Schism of 1378, and withdrew to the Netherlands and then Germany, where he was one of the founders of the University of Heidelberg, preaching it was used for, seems to have attracted the attention of a medieval and later readership, and in the century after its composition it subsequently serving as its rector nine times in the 1380s and 1390s. He wrote a summary of Aristotle’s Physica, and ‘Questions’ on the same was translated into Catalan, Dutch, English, French, German and Italian, and then printed by Caxton as The Game and Playe of Chesse (1474). author’s De anima and Metaphysica, as well as De generatione et corruptione (the text found on the leaves in question here). These were his most Manuscripts of it, even in fragmentary form, are notably rare to the market. influential compositions, and the present text is noted by both Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo Galilei.
£2,000-3,000 £2,000-3,000
22 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 23 Lot 27 27 Thomas de Cantimpré, Bonum universale de apibus, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [northern France or Lot 26 adjacent Low Countries, fifteenth century]
26 Single leaf, recovered from a binding and hence trimmed at top and outer vertical edge (with loss of a single line at top and a few characters from Two leaves from Guarino Veronese, Regule grammaticales and Carmina differentialia, in Latin prose and verse, decorated marginalia at side), remains of single column of 33 lines in angular late Gothic bookhand (part of II:3, on the obedience of the religious), catchword at manuscript on parchment [Italy, fifteenth century] inner corner of verso, capitals touched in bright red, marginalia and initials in same (somewhat oxidised in places), some folds, small holes, stains to edges and cockling, else presentable condition, 236 by 168mm. Two leaves, each with single column of 30 lines of a good Italian late Gothic bookhand, capitals on one leaf set off in margin in medieval style for verse, simple red initials and paragraph marks, recovered from a binding and hence with small holes, scuffs and spots, 204 by 155mm. Provenance: From the collection of Professor J. P. Gumbert (1936-2016), of Leiden; his sale in Burgersdijk & Niermans, 15 November 2017, lot 1214. Guarino Veronese (1374-1460) was an intellectual celebrity of the humanist movement. He completed his education by travelling to Constantinople to study Greek, and on his return to Italy became a popular teacher in Florence, Venice, Verona, Ferrara, and other Italian Text: cities, before being appointed professor of rhetoric at the University of Ferrara in 1429. In addition, he wrote commentaries on Classical texts, Thomas of Cantimpré was a Dominican friar of Brabant descent, who was educated in Cologne and then Paris, and became a professor of translated works by Strabo, Plutarch, Lucan, and Isocrates from Greek to Latin, and collected a grand manuscript library of Classical works, theology at Leuven around 1240. He died after 1263 (reportedly in 1272). The present manuscript contains part of his Bonum universale de including a number of Pliny’s letters lost until his rediscovery of them. The texts here are those of his works on grammar, beginning with the apibus, a moral work composed in the period 1256/7-1263, that uses the habits of bees as an allegory of the good and bad forms of human Regulae Grammaticales (in an apparently shortened format), a rare text extant in only a handful of manuscripts (G.L.A. Bursill-Hall, Census of power structures. As one of the few animals that live in complex and densely populated communities, bees had been held up as a reflection Medieval Latin Grammatical Manuscripts, 1981, no. 1991). These leaves may well be from the lifetime of the author, and this truncated version of human society since the work of Isidore of Seville in the seventh century. However, it was in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that of the text an early draft. The second leaf includes the same author’s verse treatise, Carmina differentialia (lines 148-211), which expounds on this image of the hive (with its ‘king’, drones and workers) as a symbol of human politics took hold with the works of St. Anthony of Padua, homonyms, homographs, and semantically related terms (see F. Stok, ‘Caratteristiche e composizione dei Carmina differentialia di Guarino Bartholomaeus Anglicanus and the present work. It enjoyed great popularity in the Middle Ages, and over a hundred manuscript witnesses Veronese’, Studi Umanistici Piceni, 36, 2016, pp. 101-122; and W.K. Percival,. ‘A Working Edition of the Carmina differentialia by Guarino have been recorded (N. Louis, ‘Essaimage et usages du «Bonum universale de apibus» de Thomas de Cantimpré’, in Lecteurs, lectures et groupes Veronese’, Res Publica Litterarum, 17, 1994, pp. 153-77). sociaux au Moyen Age, 2014, pp. 52-56, supplemented by the records on the Arlima website). Despite this, and considerable modern scholarly interest, no modern edition has yet been produced of the original Latin text. It is exceptionally rare to the market, with the Schoenberg £1,200-1,800 database listing only a single codex (Les Enlumineres, TM 545, last listed in Primer 9, no. 9).
£1,200-1,800
24 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 25 28 A small teaching collection of fragments of medieval manuscripts, in Latin, French, German and Spanish, on parchment [tenth or eleventh to sixteenth century]
56 fragments, most small cuttings recovered from reuse on spine-compartments or as board-supports in later bindings, with examples of European script from the Romanesque through to the Renaissance, with medieval music and simple and decorated initials, and a single large cutting from the corner of a fifteenth-century choirbook leaf, mostly liturgical or Biblical in content, but with two cuttings from a twelfth-century German copy of Priscian’s De arte grammatica (parts of IV:2-3), in a tiny and precise hand, capitals infilled with red and simple red initials, both approximately 200 by 105mm.; all recovered from bindings and hence with stains, scuffing and small areas of loss, overall in fair condition
£500-700
29 Collection of leaves or cuttings from liturgical manuscripts, in Latin, on parchment [Italy and Germany, thirteenth to sixteenth century]
Nine leaves (including 3 bifolia): (i) bifolium from a Missal (one full leaf and the other bisected vertically, remains of single column of 14 lines of large and high grade liturgical bookhand, red and blue initials (the blue mostly washed out), recovered from reuse on binding of an account book dated ‘1570’in total: 270 by 310mm., Germany, thirteenth century; (ii) top half of a leaf from a Calendar (March/April), entries in red or brown (with SS. Cunigunde and Gertrude), ruled for remaining 20 lines, large ‘KL’ for kalends in red, 235mm., Germany, thirteenth century; (iii) bifolium from a large Missal, double column of 20 lines, red rubrics, large initials in red or blue with ornate penwork in contrasting colours, each leaf 310 by 260mm., Italy, late fourteenth or fifteenth century; plus another four leaves from similar parent manuscripts, all recovered from bindings and hence with stains, scuffing and small areas of loss, overall in fair and legible condition
£500-700 Lot 30 30 Collection of leaves from medieval manuscripts, in Latin, on parchment [Germany, c. 1200 to 31 fourteenth century] Collection of leaves or cuttings from medieval musical manuscripts, in Latin, on parchment [Germany, thirteenth to fifteenth century] Six leaves (3 bifolia): (i) bifolium from an early Lectionary, slight losses at top of leaves removing a line or so there, otherwise double column of 21 lines in a distinctively tall and elegant script, with some biting curves and pronounced lateral Eight leaves or cuttings: (i) top half of a leaf from an early choirbook, 7 lines of text with music on a 4-lin red stave, music in square notation, compression, but retaining an st-ligature, pale red rubrics, simple red initials, 295 by 240mm., Germany, c. 1200; bifolium capitals in split penwork bands, red rubrics and simple initials, 165 by 205mm., thirteenth century; (ii) another cutting from centre of a bifolium from a homilary, with parts of St Leo the Great, Sermo II, and St. Maximus of Turin (d. early fifth century), Homily 25, from a similar choirbook, each leaf with remains of 9 lines of text with music on 4-line red stave, capitals in split penwork bands or touched in red, double column of 32 lines in a squat and angular hand, capitals in jagged penstrokes and touched in red, each leaf 340 by red rubrics, simple tall red initials, 320 by 220mm., late thirteenth century or perhaps opening fourteenth century; (iii) three small cuttings from a 310mm., Germany (perhaps Rhineland), late thirteenth century; (iii) bifolium from a Missal, double column of 31 lines, red portable choirbook or noted Missal, text in rounded Gothic hand with music in hufnagel notation arranged around a red clef-line, red rubrics and rubrics, red and pale green initials, each leaf 277 by 210mm., Germany, fourteenth century; all recovered from bindings and simple red initials, the largest piece the bottom half of a leaf: 170 by 250mm., fourteenth or early fifteenth century; plus another three leaves of the hence with stains, scuffing and small areas of loss fifteenth century; all recovered from bindings and hence with stains, scuffing and small areas of loss
£500-700 £500-700
26 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 27 33 Cutting from a copy of the works of Augustine, with a miniature showing a peasant working on an initial with an adze, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Italy (perhaps Lombardy), fourteenth century]
Cutting from the upper outer corner of a leaf, with a white and blue initial on blue grounds within a green frame, the edges of the initial terminating in acanthus leaf twists that curl around the corners of the frame, a man in a green tunic standing within the frame, one foot on the initial and raising an adze (in metallic paint, now oxidised) to strike at its side, single large red initial on verso, red rubrics (with ornamental pen cadels in uppermost line), remains of a single column of 49 lines (with Augustine’s letters, sermon 391 and work on the labours of monks), recovered from reuse on a binding and hence with scuffs and old water damage (this removing detail from initial, large sections of text on recto, and causing stains and cockling there), trimmed at edge removing one side of frame around initial, 195 by 148mm.
The miniature here must take its inspiration from the corresponding text on the recto of this Lot 33 fragment, a part of Augustine’s Retractiones (II:21) on the work of monks, a text originally written as a discrete booklet in defence of the dignity of hard labour. Augustine composed the tract in response to the arrival in 401 of a group of long-haired nomadic monks in the region of Roman Carthage, who preached a completely contemplative life, following Matthew 6:26-29 (‘Consider the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns ... Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labour not’). Representations of any trade or profession are rare in medieval art.
£300-500
34 The Nativity in a historiated initial, on a leaf from a manuscript Gradual, on parchment [Low Countries (probably Flanders), fifteenth century]
Single large leaf, with large initial ‘P’ (opening “Puer natus est …”, the introit for Christmas Day) in pink with white decoration, enclosing a scene of the Nativity before a stable and Lot 32 32 a hilly landscape, all on angular gold grounds, a bar border Bifolium with four historiated initials from a lavishly illuminated Bible, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [northern France on one side of the text in gold, blue and pink, decorated border (Paris), c. 1210-20] on three sides of rinceaux foliage terminating in coloured leaves and flower heads and gold leaves and bezants, enclosing Two conjoined leaves, with delicately painted historiated initials (opening 2-3 John, the Epistle of Jude and Revelation) of Biblical figures holding scrolls sprays of realistic foliage, a spray of blue and red acanthus and a book, and an angel with a scroll above the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse (a reference to the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse: Ephesus, Smyrna, leaves at foot of bar border, red rubrics, strapwork initials, 9 Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea), three of these in pink or blue with white penwork set on burnished gold grounds with coloured lines of a fine and angular late Gothic bookhand, with music frames heightened with dots, the largest with a pink-bodied dragon sitting atop the initial, his tail providing the gold and coloured extension into the on a 4-line red stave (rastrum: 15mm.), some cockling at edges border, that terminating in a spray of coloured acanthus leaves, the smaller two of these with similar border extensions, the last historiated initial with and discoloured splashes to lower part of leaf, some scuffing to full-length figure of John standing in a burnished gold column between two drollery dragons, one further illuminated initial in blue enclosing mirrored left-hand half of initial with chipping of paint from Virgin’s sprays of acanthus leaf foliage, on tessellated red grounds with thin gold frame, alternate red and blue running titles and versal initials, red rubrics, double face, overall fair and presentable condition, 380 by 253mm. column of 56 lines, written below topline, slight staining at head with some cockling there, natural split to edge of one leaf (only affecting blank border), marginalia showing trimming at edges, small spots and stains, else outstanding condition, each leaf 254 by 170mm. (written space: 170 by 98mm.) The script and style of decoration here point to Flemish liturgical books, such as Bruges, Stadsbibliotheek 108 From an outstanding Bible produced in the workshop of the Almagest Master (see R. Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris during the Reign of (reproduced in vlaamse kunst op perkament: Handschriften Saint Louis, 1977, pp. 27-29; F. Avril, ‘À quand remontent les premiers ateliers d’enlumineurs laïcs à Paris?’, Les Dossiers de l’Archéologie 16, 1976, en miniaturen te Brugge van de 12de tot de 16de eeuw, 1981, pp. 38-44 and R.H. Rouse and M.A. Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris 1200-1500, 2000, I, pp. 31- no. 56, pl. 58). 35). The main body of 181 leaves appeared in our rooms, 17 July 2014, lot 181, with individual leaves (including this bifolium) extracted soon after and appearing in Christie’s, 1 December 2015 sale (these leaves as lot 2 there). £1,200-1,800
£4,000-6,000 Lot 34
28 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 29 Lot 36 36 Leaf from a Liber Benefactorum, most probably from Sint Janskerk, Mechelen, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Flanders (most probably Mechelen), dated 1537]
Single leaf, with single column of 25 lines (containing 3 entries) in a fine late lettre bâtarde, capitals in split bars of same, some underlining in red, original folio no. “xxiiii”, directions for offices and opening line “Nativitas sancti iohannis baptiste triplex” in bright red, note of month “Junius” at head in split bands of same, one historiated initial ‘G’ in gilt acanthus leaves showing John the Baptist holding a lamb in a grassy landscape with trees in background, all on green grounds in two shades and framed in thin liquid gold frame, the lower darker green panel flecked with liquid gold dots (cf. the initial in a Book of Hours made for Emperor Charles V in Brussels or Mechelen after 1547 by the Master of Morgan M.696: reproduced in Illuminating the Renaissance, 2003, fig. 167b on p. 500), coat-of-arms at foot held by a large brown bird within a green floral wreath with pink ribbons and gold baubles at its edges, one large blue banderole either side of arms, with inscription in liquid gold capitals in Flemish: “D D PINGOIN / LEEV” (the second part for ‘leuw’, lion; the use of Flemish common for personal mottos in books produced for guilds, other professional institutions, and books of ecclesiastical Lot 35 benefactors), verso blank, slight cockling, small spots, flaking from parts of surround of arms, else good condition, 385 by 270mm. 35 Habakkuk, historiated initial on a leaf from a large Bible, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [southern Germany, late fifteenth This leaf is perhaps all that survives of a lost and apparently dispersed de luxe record of the benefactors of a Flemish church. Such records, as century] well as those of professional institutions, reached particularly splendid heights of book decoration in Flanders in the sixteenth century (see other examples in the Oath Book of the Antwerp De Goudbloem chamber, now Antwerp, Koninkliijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten, Archief, Single leaf, with a historiated initial ‘O’ (opening ‘Onus quod vidit ...’, Habakkuk 1:1) in light pink acanthus leaves, with further coloured acanthus inv.O.A.272(5), catalogued in M. Smeyers and J. Van der Stock, Flemish Illuminated Manuscripts, 1996, no. 35; and the Privilege Book of the and flowers in vivid red, blue and green extending into the margins, all on gold grounds and within a blue frame, the initial enclosing the figure of the Brussels Den Boeck chamber, now Bib. Royale, MS. 21377, ibid. no. 36). The entries here include a record of the gifts of Judocus van der Berckt, prophet Habakkuk holding a large scroll, standing in a landscape and arguing with God the Father who emerges from the clouds, 2-line initials in red or a lawyer who served the “magno consilio” (i.e. the great council of Mechelen, the highest legal court in the Low Countries), who is recorded blue, running titles alternately in same, rubrics in red, double column, 50 lines of a flowing late Gothic bookhand, some stains and cockling, a long crease elsewhere as buried in the archives of the Cathedral of Sint Rombout there, as among that institution’s founders (see Provincie, stad, ende district in the middle from the leaf once being folded, the illumination rubbed and smudged in part and pigment loss from the prophet’s robes, in fair condition, van Mechelen opgeheldert in haere kercken, 1770, I: 73; died in 1568), as well as that of Judocus Vrancx, who is recorded in the same records as 392 by 298mm. buried in Sint Janskerk in the same city (ibid. p. 337). Here their bequests are recorded as having happened in 1536 and 1501, and it is added that Judocus Vrancx served as priest of the community in question. The third entry names a Johannes Olmerus who made a donation in 1534. The This leaf is from a notably large German manuscript Bible. The stocky figures and the hilly landscape are indebted to German woodcut wealth of the men who sat on the great council of Mechelen ensured that the Sint Janskerk was an opulently decorated church, including a illustrations, in particular the woodcuts in Anton Koberger’s German Bible, which was published in Nuremberg in 1483. baroque triptych over the altar commissioned from Reubens in 1619.
£1,500-2,000 £2,000-3,000
30 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 31 Lot 38
38 Fourteen initials with interlace or architectural decoration, from an illuminated choirbook, on parchment [Italy (perhaps Rome), late fifteenth century] Lot 37 Fourteen square cuttings, each containing a single illuminated initial, their bodies in dark green and soft pink acanthus leaves or architectural features, 37 enclosing white or grey floral and interlace designs (sometimes enclosing red panels) on blue grounds, each initial with burnished gold frame, and with Large initial enclosing foliage and large gold bezants, on a cutting from an illuminated choirbook, on parchment [Italy foliage curling out of this onto page with gold bezants and stylised flowers, remnants of text at edges with music on a 4-line red stave (rastrum 84mm.), (perhaps Siena), second half of fifteenth century] some faces picked out in penwork details at edges of capitals, one cutting repaired at one side with a strip of parchment from same manuscript, another with losses to margin at top showing through mount, a few spots, else outstanding condition, sizes varying between 175 by 142mm. and 110 and 95mm.; Rectangular cutting, with a large initial ‘U’ in dark purple, terminating with fluttering acanthus leaves in same, orange and green, these supporting mounted together large gold bezants with sprouts of black pen-lines, and enclosing within its body a spray of multi-coloured acanthus leaves with gold fruit growing from a black rock at the base, all on blue and brightly burnished gold grounds, remains of 2 lines of text with music on a 4-line red stave (rastrum: 41mm.), 3 The finely shaded monochrome elements and delicate architectural features of these initials are eye catching and identify their parent lines of same on reverse with red rubric and remains of initial in red encased within blue penwork, small repaired holes to parchment, else outstanding manuscript as part of the elaborate style of choirbook illumination that began in the late fifteenth century, apparently carrying over parts condition, 240 by 180mm.; gilt frame of the style of illumination developed for grand humanist manuscripts into liturgical works. Examples abound in Rome (with La Miniatura Italiana tra Gotico e Rinascimento, 1985, figs. 13 & 14, giving examples), but the style was also found as far away as Lucca (see ibid., figs. 15 and The thin and fluttering acanthus leaves here recall the work of fifteenth-century Siena, and perhaps identify the artist as a follower of Giovanni 12, reproducing antiphoners 11 and 619 of Lucca Cathedral). di Paolo (c. 1403-82) or Sano di Pietro (1405-81). Another cutting from the same codex was offered in our rooms, 2 July 2019, lot 54. £2,000-3,000 £600-800
32 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 33 40 John of St-Amand, Concordantiae, a medical compendium of Greek and Arabic The following seven lots are grouped together here to illustrate the theme of medicine and early science in authorities arranged by subject, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment the Middle Ages and Renaissance, with examples of texts from the earliest years of the influence of Arabic [probably France, late thirteenth century] and Ancient Greek texts on Western scholars following the contact brought about by the Crusades and the Single leaf, recovered from later reuse on an account book, hence with inner margin and small establishment of the Crusader States in the Holy Land, a medical compendium made by a woman in late sections of text there torn away, remains of double column of 54 lines of a fine university hand with sixteenth-century Austria witnessing the important, and often forgotten, role played by women in medi- many abbreviations, paragraph marks in red or pale blue, initials in red or blue, running titles of cine, and a fifteenth-century Alchemical compendium with texts ascribed to Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan) and ‘L’ (for ‘Liber’) and ‘=’ in red, small amount of contemporary marginalia, early seventeenth-century inscriptions on outer side from use around account book dated ‘1604’, spots, stains and large tear to Razis (Ahmad al-Razi) with a fine noble provenance. upper outer corner, overall fair and presentable condition, 337 by 209mm.
John of St-Amand lived c. 1230-1303/12, taught at the University of Paris, wrote extensively on medicine and pharmacology, and was one of the forerunners of the thought of Roger Bacon on the experimental method in science. His work was held in high regard by contemporaries, and the archives of the University of Paris record that from the early fourteenth to the late fifteenth century a copy of this text passed from dean to dean as a fundamental textbook. His ‘concordances’ is a vast compilation of Ancient Greek (notably Galen and Hypocrites) and Arabic authorities (notably Averroes, Avicenna and Ali ibn Ridwan) on a wide array of medical issues, arranged alphabetically for reference. As such it formed the medical equivalent of the Lot 40 more common Biblical or legal concordances. The present leaf is an early witness to the text, most probably written within the author’s lifetime, and perhaps within his circle.
£700-900
Lot 39 39 Bifolium from a herbal glossary in the Synonyma tradition, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [France, twelfth century]
Two conjoined leaves, each with single column of 25 lines in a small and angular early Gothic bookhand, with a few biting curves, plant names underlined in black ink, apparently reused on accounts in sixteenth century with probable date of those accounts “1592” added to bas-de-page of one page upside Lot 41 down, liberated from those accounts by the nineteenth century and with inscription of that date at head (“Live de medicine fin XI ou comment du XII”), cockling and stained areas, a few tears to edges, but without affect to text, overall good and presentable condition, each leaf 185 by 146mm. 41 Leaves from a medical text with entries on lung diseases including pneumonia (here “peripneumonia”), in Latin, from a An important early witness to the impact of Ancient Greek and Arabic medicine on Western learning in the aftermath of the Crusades parchment manuscript still in situ on later book boards [France, thirteenth century] and the foundation of the Crusader States Three leaves, each with double column of approximately 40 lines in a tiny university script, employing numerous abbreviations, a large number of These leaves contain numerous entries of medicinal plants (usually Latin transliterations of Arabic or Greek plant names), with brief glosses contemporary glosses in margin and interlineally, paragraph marks in red or dark blue, initials in same with contrasting penwork, each folded around a on alternative names and uses. They are most probably all that survives from a codex with a synonyma-text. These texts were composed in the thin wooden book board and pasted to brown leather binding there (two of these with nineteenth-century presentation bookplates of Bangor Independent twelfth and thirteenth centuries as a way to make practical sense of the waves of new herbal information that flowed into European hands from College Library), and with concomitant tears and discolouration to edges, small holes and scuffs, overall fair condition, each 194 by 144mm. medical books discovered by Westerners in the Holy Land during the Crusades. In response to the discovery of the Ancient Greek medical writer Serapion and the Arabic physicians Rasis and Avicenna, anonymous authors in the West composed the Synonyma Rasis, Synonyma The text here is that quoted anonymously by the Lyonnese doctor and medical text compiler, Symphorian Champier (1471-1539), in book III Serapionis and Synonyma Avicennae, as well as many others not devoted to a single author or text. In an effort to bring order to the cacophony of his Practica nova (cf. the chapter in the second column of one leaf, opening “Vera pleuresis a non vera differ ...” with the verso of fol. lvii of of such texts with a single unified replacement, Simon de Gênes compiled the Clavis sanationis in the late thirteenth century. We have not been the 1517 printing of Champier’s work). Its discovery here redates the work back to the thirteenth century, and the leaves here contain much not able to identify the present text among published examples, and this may well be the only recorded witness to this text. quoted by Champier.
£2,000-3,000 £500-700
34 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 35 Lot 43 43 θ The medical compilation of Siguna Stübichin, a noble female medical practitioner from Renaissance Germany, in German, manuscript on paper [Austria (probably Styria), dated 1577-9]
24 leaves, complete, the first and last leaves a bifolium forming a loose wrapper around all others, within these two leaves: i20, ii3 (last a cancelled Lot 42 blank), entries in a single scrawling Germanic hand with titles in larger more elaborate script, flamboyant penwork cadels at edges of text, folds from 42 paper production, some smudges and surface dirt in places, corners bumped and folded, 220 by 160mm.; stitched into contemporary paper binding, A Physician with Two Amputees, miniature from an early copy of Bartholomaeus Anglicanus, Le Livre des proprietes des now much torn (especially at spine) and loose in places, pentrials and an alphabet in several hands on covers choses, in the French translation of Jean Corbechon, illuminated manuscript cutting on parchment [northern France (Paris), c. 1390] A rare example of female book ownership in the German Renaissance; as well as a record of the important role played by women in medicine in the period Square cutting, with a clean-shaven physician in white robes standing before two amputees on crutches, holding an ointment pot, a carved wooden stool behind him and a shelf with other pots above him, tessellated background formed from gold hairline strokes over yellow wash, all within thin gold Provenance: frame, 18 lines of a fine vernacular French hand on reverse, scuffs and damage to reverse probably showing that miniature once laid down in album Written for the use of an Austrian noblewoman, who dates the booklet on its front cover and inscribes it twice with her own name or on card, the white of the faces oxidised in places, small chips, cut to edges with slight loss to upper left corner of frame, but overall in good and “Siguna Stübichin”, noting in both places that she was born under the name “Keffenhilerin”. She can be firmly identified with the Siguna presentable condition, in folding card mount, 100 by 88mm. Khevenhüller who married Johannes Stibich/Stübich von Spielfeld and Marnberg, who attained the noble seat of Spielfeld in Styria in 1577. The Khevenhüller were high nobles of Austria based in Landskron castle in Carinthia. By the close of the sixteenth century they were among This miniature is from an early and important copy of the French translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicanus, Le Livre des proprietes des choses, the wealthiest families in the region, and as Protestants they supported Gustav Adolf of Sweden in the Thirty Years’ War, receiving the estate in the hand of the artist Perrin (Pierre) Remiet , who was documented in Paris from 1386 to 1428. Other copies of the text were produced of Julita Gård, Södermanland, in return. Siguna Stübich may well be the scribe here, and this a rare example of the creation of a book by a by him and an associate, Jean de Nizieres, for members of the French nobility in the years up to and around 1400, with complete copies woman in the German Renaissance, as well as the ownership of one. The book appears to have taken two years to compile, and the main surviving in that sold as part of the ‘Arcana’ collection, Christie’s, 7 July 2010, lot 31, for £950,000 hammer (compare the notably similar hand dates the back cover “1579”. It presumably remained in the library of the castle at Spielfeld after her death, which in 1872 was sold to the composition of the same scene reproduced on p. 57 of that manuscript as reproduced in Sotheby’s, 23 June 1998, lot 52); Bibliotheque de Baron Karl von Bruck, and whose descendants in turn sold the castle and its contents in 2007. Ste-Genevieve, MS. 1028 (bought by Charles d’Orleans in 1396); and Paris, BnF. MS. fr. 216. Text: Bartholomaeus Anglicanus was a Franciscan, who taught in Paris from 1224-31 and then in Magdeburg. Around 1245, he completed this text, This is not a scribbled notebook, added to as each new recipe came to its author, but an extensive collection of such material, in a fine and and it rose quickly in prominence to become one of the greatest secular and scientific texts of the Middle Ages. It aimed to encompass all final copy which was probably the author’s own. The work includes protective measures against common complaints, but also a number knowledge on the heavens and its beings, the elements and four humours, the human body (with the present miniature once standing at the against the ‘pestilence’ or plague. The focus on women continues here in this subject matter, with four such entries noted as from female head of that book), on illnesses and their treatment, on heavenly bodies, measuring time, matter and the elements, water and fish, earth and sources (in variants of the form: “der Frauen Brauin v[on] Mantvortt”), but none ascribed to men. The role played by women in medieval countries of the world, stones and metals, trees and plants, beasts, and phenomena without physical substance. The French translation was and Renaissance medicine is often overlooked, but despite exclusion from university studies they played important roles in the subject, and made for Charles V (1338-80), but his copy of c.1471 does not survive, and the chief importance of the earliest manuscripts, including this female doctors or surgeons (excluding midwives) are recorded throughout the Middle Ages from such far apart places such as Naples and one, is as witnesses to the cycle of illustration designed for him. Frankfurt.
£4,000-6,000 £2,000-3,000
36 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 37 44 The Galletti Alchemical Compendium, including the celebrated Summa perfectionis magisterii attributed to Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan), and other texts attributed to Albertus Magnus and Razis (Ahmad al-Razi), in Latin, illustrated manuscript on paper [western central Germany or adjacent parts of Netherlands (probably Kleve or vicinity), c. 1489]
147 leaves (now disbound single leaves due to burn damage, see below), almost certainly complete, original collation partly recoverable from catchwords, the rest most probably following a regular pattern: i8, ii-iii10, iv10(probably: the quire ends with a blank leaf), v10, vi-vii10(probably), viii10(probably: as quire 4), ix-xi10, xii-xiv10(probably: as quire 4), xv9 (last probably a cancelled blank), modern pencil foliation (repeating 78 and 104, but followed here), text in double column of 38 lines of a good late Gothic bookhand, with other contemporary hands later in volume, capitals touched in red, simple red and pale blue initials, twenty-two diagrams of alchemical equipment accompanying Geber’s text, the whole once in a fire and probably burnt while stacked on a shelf semi-protected by other books, and so with spine and edges of leaves burnt away, causing small losses to upper lines and a cm or so from edges of innermost columns at head of volume, the edges of the paper dry, discoloured and flaking in those places, but stabilisable by a good conservator, some spots and stains throughout, leaves at each end discoloured from soot, central part of pages in good condition and paper supple, each leaf now in individual plastic folder (see weblink appended to online cataloguing to further assess Lot 44 condition), 270 by 190mm.
Provenance: 1. Most probably written for a scholar interested in alchemy, around 1489 in Kleve in the Lower Rhine or its vicinity: most watermarks are indistinct, apart from that of a realistic goose close to Briquet 12172 (recorded Kleve, 1489; here visible on fols. 50 and 97) and 12173 (Metz, 1490).
2. Gustavo Camillo Galletti (1805-1868) of Florence, nobleman, lawyer and grand bibliophile, specialising in manuscripts and incunabula: his oval and crowned blue ink stamp at foot of first leaf with inscription “Bibl. Gust. C. Galletti Flor.” After his death his vast library was divided between his daughter-in-law, Vittoria Galletti, and Baron Horace de Landau (1823-1903), the Rothschild’s banker in Turin, who acquired his part in 1879. The present codex is not in the 1890 catalogue of the Landau collection (F. Roediger, Catalogue des livres manuscrits et imprimés composant la bibliothèque de M. Horace de Landau, 1885-90) and bears no marks of Landau’s ownership, and so it may have passed out of the Galletti collection in the years between 1868 and 1879, or remained with the Galletti family.
3. Recently rediscovered in a German collection.
38 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 39 Lot 44 Text: Fire is perhaps the greatest enemy of books, and this item has only narrowly escaped destruction, perhaps sometime in the last century and a half. That said, what remains is still remarkable as a large collection of important alchemical works, some fundamental to the subject. Such works in manuscript of this early date are rare to the market.
The manuscript contains a large collection of alchemical and early scientific texts, including: (1) fols. 1r-37r, De metallis in speciali, attributed to Albertus Magnus (Albertus Magnus, Opera omnia, 5 (IV, 1-8), 1890), followed by a single blank leaf; (2) fols. 39r-49v, the Semita recta, opening “Alkimia est ars ab alkimio inventa ...”, and also attributed occasionally to Albertus Magnus (Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, III, p. 42, 62, Thorndike & Kibre, Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings, 1963, col. 76; A. Calvet in Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge, 79, 2012, pp. 129-33), followed by six blank leaves; (3) fols. 57r-65v, Rasis, Opusculum in arte alchimie (a variant also known from Beinecke, Mellon MS. 7, that copy attributed there to a Franciscan, Brother Helias, and previously thought to be Lot 45 otherwise unrecorded), followed by two blank leaves; (4) fols. 68r-70r, Liber Correctorum, edited by one “Magister Bernardus” (notably similar to Richardus Anglicanus, Correctium, in his Theatrum Chemicum); (5) fols. 70v-74v, an unidentified treatise with index; fols. 78r-115r, (6) the Summa perfectionis magisterii attributed to Geber, with numerous diagrams, followed by a single blank leaf; (7) fols. 117r-120v, Liber de 45 septuaginta; (8) fols. 121r-122v, a medieval addition of an unidentified treatise on metals, followed by three blank leaves; (9) fols. 126r-140v,De Extracts from the Horoscope of the Elector of Saxony with catastrophic and dire events predicted for 1562, in German, lapidis, cum glosa; (10) fols. 141r-42v, indices, followed by three blank leaves. manuscript on single sheet of paper [Germany (probably Saxony), c. 1562]
The Summa perfectionis magisterii attributed to Geber (more properly Jabir ibn Hayyan, d. 815) was widely read in alchemical circles in Europe Single leaf, with single column of 23 lines of a scrawling vernacular hand, with day of month at far left followed by name of month and brief description from its translation into Latin c. 1310 onwards, as it offered the clearest synthesis of alchemical theory and laboratory instruction. It asserted of prediction, not apparently ever bound into a volume, chain-lines but no watermarks, modern pencil ‘1562’ at head, some spots, stains and folds, else that all metals are composed of unified sulphur and mercury corpuscles, and thus went to the heart of practical alchemy - the hunt for an excellent condition, 295 by 205mm. elixir or philosophers’ stone that could rearrange these corpuscles and transmute base metals into gold. The text here opens “Diss nachfolgentt ist auff dhas 62 Jar von des Churfusten zu Sachsenn Astronimo gepronosticirett”, evidently August What is of especial note here are the twenty-two diagrams that accompany the text of Summa perfectionis magisterii on fols. 89-98. They von Sachsen (1526-86), who held the electorship from 1553, and was married to Anna, the daughter of Christian III of Denmark. The sixteenth accompany the laboratory directions of the text, and are themselves famed for their precision, indicating that the author had extensive century saw a rapid growth in German noble interest in horoscopes and the prediction and charting of fantastical events, with its heights practical experience in chemical operations. The text and its diagrams was not equalled in chemical instruction until the sixteenth century. reached in the various Wunderzeichenbuch produced. This leaf records thirteen fatal events for 1562, including the “Dreyer Fürsten Absterben” This is the most heavily annotated section of this volume, indicating its practical use in the Middle Ages. (death of three princes), “ein halb Sintflutt” (a great flood) and “onglückliche Hitzt und Heuschrecken” (heatwave and plague of locusts).
£10,000-15,000 £700-900
40 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 41 Lot 46
46 Charter issued by Johannes “fitz Ley” of Coventry and Margaret his wife for Radulfus “Le Alley”, concerning property within the town of Coventry, in Latin, manuscript document on parchment [England (Coventry), late twelfth century or c. 1200]
Single sheet document, written in 11 long lines in a small and angular English secretarial hand, two seal tags but only one seal present (fair condition, circular green wax with fleur-de-lys and inscription; the charter stating that the document was to be sealed by both grantors with their own seals, so presumably Margaret’s missing), further partly erased lines of text within turn up, folds, small spots, else good condition, 78+12 by 182mm.
£400-600
Lot 48
48 Four charters relating to Sandwich and other sites in Kent, in Latin, documents on parchment [England (Kent), fourteenth and fifteenth century]
Four single sheet documents: (a) grant of John Thomas “de Sandewic” for Thomas Hichin of land in parish of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Sandwich, 9 long lines of a good English secretarial hand, no seal tags or seal, contemporary endorsements on reverse and seventeenth-century “No 1 Our Lady” in same place, 100 by 290mm., dated 3 December 1386; (b) grant of John Grene of Sandwich for Thomas Boteler of the same, and his wife Alice, of land in parish of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the town, 12 long lines, indentured at head, no seal tags or seal, endorsed by scribe “Paynton” at foot of recto, contemporary endorsements on reverse, 105 by 310mm., dated 8 May 1469; (c) grant of John ‘Hanygherst’ and Alice his wife for John Gyldeford “de Eghethorn” of land in the parish of “Estr” (Eastry, Kent), 6 long lines, no seal tags or seal, contemporary endorsements on reverse, 85 by 290mm., dated 1417; (d) grant of John Walker “Capellanus”, priest of “Bocton Manchensey” (Boughton Monchelsea, Maidstone, Kent), and others for Thomas Mugge, for Lot 47 land named “Pylenden” in the parish of “Goutherst” (Goudhurst), 15 long lines of a professional English secretarial hand, opening with a penwork initial, indentured at head, seal tag at foot with remains of red wax seal attached, contemporary endorsements on reverse, 130+20 by 315mm., dated 8 May 1473; 47 folds and small spots, first item with small hole at apex of folds in centre, else good condition Three charters relating to the estates of Thornton and Leckhamstead, Bucks., in Latin, documents on parchment [England (Buckinghamshire), early fourteenth century] Another charter of John Walker, priest of Boughton Monchelsea (here issuing item d) was sold in our rooms, 3 December 2019, lot 50.
Three single sheet documents: (a) grant of William ‘le frankelyn’ of Thornton to Malcolm “de Chastillonn” and his wife Sybil, for land in Thornton, £1,000-2,000 16 long lines of an English secretarial hand, gently indentured at head, seal tag at foot, but no seal, contemporary endorsements on reverse, 100+15 by 230mm., dated 1302; (b) grant of Simon West ‘de Thornton’ for Malcolm “de chastilun” and his wife Sybil, for land in Thornton, 21 long lines in a fine and handsome English secretarial hand, seal tag at foot, but no seal, contemporary endorsements on reverse, 200+40 by 260mm., dated 1322; (c) grant of John, priest of ‘Tyngewik’ for Richard son of John, and his wife Isabel, for land in Leckhamstead, 17 long lines of an English secretarial hand, indentured at head, seal tag at foot, but no seal, contemporary endorsements on reverse, 130+15 by 240mm., dated 1323; folds and small spots, else good condition
Other parts of this dispersed archive for Thornton and Leckhamstead were sold in our rooms, 6 July 2017, lot 76, and again 6 December 2017, lot 88.
£800-1,200
42 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 43 Lot 50 50 Cardinal Carlo Carafa, Letters Patent granting the office of count of the Sacred Palace of the Lateran to Giovanni Battista, son of Claudio Agucchi of Bologna, in Latin, illuminated manuscript document on parchment [Italy (Rome or Bologna), dated 1557]
Large single-sheet document, with text in 18 long lines of a fine italic hand, first and last lines in blue and liquid gold capitals with further words in gold with blue initial letters, crucial words in main document in liquid gold, decorated upper and vertical borders enclosing gilt and coloured scrolling foliage with realistic flowers and bare-chested caryatids, this upper border enclosing the arms of Pope Paul IV, Cardinal Carafa and the ducal family of the Carafa, and at the foot of the extensions in the upright borders what are evidently the armorial devices of Giovanni Battista, son of Claudio Agucchi: an elephant sable, with a castle on its back, standing on a grassy landscape (left) and a lion rampant d’or on azure standing atop three hills and holding a cross fleury gules, all beneath three fleur-de-lys d’or (right), all within gold frames, place of issuing and final part of date omitted at end (causing later endorsing hand on verso to give wrong date of ‘1550’; but the correct year established by the papal regnal year: Paul IV 2), slight damage along folds including small holes, some small chipping to paint of border in places, seal and seal tag wanting, overall good condition, 323+155 by 746mm. Lot 49 The grantor of this attractive document, Carlo Carafa (1517-61), stood out as a notoriously vicious politician in an age when such men were commonplace. The arms at the head of this document betray the fact that he owed his cardinalate to his uncle, Gian Pietro Carafa (Pope Paul IV from 1555), and in fact was appointed only two weeks after his uncle’s election (and only a few years after Carafa was accused of being involved in an assassination, and exiled from his native Naples for murder and banditry). Through this papal connection he was able to segue from a career as a mercenary general into papal high office, but fell from grace on the death of his uncle in 1559, and was quickly exiled from 49 Rome, arrested on the orders of Pope Pius IV the year after, and executed by strangulation. Large collection of charters, predominantly English, in Latin, French and English, manuscript documents mostly on parchment [England, fourteenth to nineteenth century] The elephant in the arms in the lower left hand border here deserves especial mention. This armorial device is most probably that of the recipient of the document, albeit an untraced member of one of the lines of a Bolognese noble family. The elephant was used as the symbol of Twenty-five documents, fragments or related items, including (a) grant of Robert, priest of “Senenaly” of land in same place for Christian, son of Godwin, a handful of towns and families in Renaissance Italy, but none with any meaningful connection to the Agucchi family in general, and instead, it 15 long lines, seal tag but no seal, 110+12 by 170mm., England, dated 1278; (b) document in favour of a noble Italian lady named Richelda endorsing may be a nod here to the elephant-mania that gripped Rome and then the rest of northern Italy from 1514 onwards. The arrival of a live elephant her possessions and rights, 35 long lines, Italy, dated 1254; (c) lease of Thomas de Crannache of farmland to a Roger, 10 long lines, seal tag but no seal, in some part of Western Europe was almost always followed by an explosion of interest in them and their widespread appearance in the arts. In the whole treated with reagent and now only partly legible, 90 by 225mm., England, fourteenth century; plus another three fifteenth-century English the opening years of the sixteenth century, with Portuguese power in India growing, King Manuel I, began to build up a stable of ‘elephants of charters (one with seal), 4 Tudor documents (one with page in English), 11 later charters (including a large charter of Queen Victoria for “our trusty and state’ in Lisbon, seizing seven of these beasts as war booty at Malacca in 1511. In 1514 he presented an elephant named Hanno to the Pope - the well beloved Harry Thomas Alfred Rainals [born Copenhagen, served as consul to Baltimore and then Brest], dated 2 September 1888, with large intact first live elephant in Rome since antiquity (see D.F. Lach, ‘Asian Elephants in Renaissance Europe’, Journal of Asian History, 1, 1967, pp. 133-76; seal, and a printed record of death intestate endorsed in manuscript, issued on behalf of the archbishop of Canterbury, dated 1832) and 4 fragments of and S. Bedini, The Pope’s Elephant, 1997). Hanno quickly became the Pope’s favourite among the papal menagerie, and took part in parades documents; all with folds, slight damage and stains around Rome. Hanno died in 1516, and was buried in the Cortile del Belvedere in the Papal palace, with Raphael commissioned to produce a pachydermic fresco (now lost) and the Pope himself composing the epitaph. However, Hanno’s influence was not just confined to Rome, and £2,500-3,500 echoes of his image have been found in Mantua and even in Bologna, in the design of the Palazzo Fantuzzi there in 1517, which has prominent elephants on its façade following the recent adoption of the animal as the armorial device of the Fantuzzi. Here in this document we appear to have one of the last echoes of Hanno, adopted as an armorial emblem by a man who may have seen Hanno himself some 41 years before this charter was created.
£1,500-2,000
44 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 45 Lot 51 51 θ Emperor Charles V, document legitimising bastard sons of the Corner (Cornelia) family of Venice and the Malaspina of Castle Aquila in Sarzana, and appointing the first to the office of count palatine, in Latin, manuscript on parchment in contemporary fine binding [Italy (Padova and Rome), dated 1540 and 1557]
26 leaves, comprising two separate booklets: (i) 20 leaves, complete, collation: i-iv4, v4 (last a blank), single column of 19 lines of late humanist hand, crucial words in ornamental capitals; (ii) 6 leaves, complete, collation: i6 (last 2 blank), single column of 24 lines in smaller humanist hand that leans to right, text opens with capitals, and ends with subscriptions; some leaves darkened and cockled, a few discoloured splashes, last quire becoming loose, overall fair and presentable condition, 215 by 155mm.; contemporary Venetian binding of dark brown leather over pasteboards, with borders of foliage designs around a central cabouchon, a few small scuffs and holes, boards very slightly bowed at edges, else excellent condition, hole in inner lower edge of binding and leaves for imperial seal and cord (these wanting)
Documents such as these, apart from their aesthetic appeal, hold some fascination as records of the sexual mores of the Renaissance and some of the complex legal situations that arose from these. The grand imperial decree which opens this volume, granted the Corner family (or Cornelia, as they claimed to trace their origins to the Roman gens Cornelia, one of the grandest patrician families of Ancient Rome) the right to legitimise their children despite their creation by illicit or damned sexual unions, that is incest, adultery or begotten by male or female criminals. This delicate matter was clearly of some importance to the family and the original applicant to the imperial court was Girolamo Corner, on behalf of the father Giorgio, the brother of Caterina, who would later be the Queen of Cyprus (married James II), and it was later still being pursued by Cardinal Francesco Corner (1478-1543). The emperor then continues to grant all their children, whether born or unborn, the title of Imperial Counts Palatine. The document was signed in Worms on 20 January, 1521, and confirmed on 12 April, 1540, in Padua. Then from fol. 12r onwards follows the petition of the Marquis Leonardo Malaspina of Castello dell'Aquila in Gragnola (today Fivizzano, near Sarzana) on behalf of his two sons who were born of different mothers, one of whom may have been a nun. This document was signed on 29 March, 1540, and confirmed on 12 April in the same year in Padua. The volume ends with a notarial deed dated Rome, 2 December, 1557, with which Ottavio Malaspina, who in the meantime became 24 years old, claimed the title of Marquis of Malaspina as a result of the previous act of recognition. The fine Venetian binding here suggests that this was the Corner family’s own copy of this document, produced in this de luxe format for their own archives.
£3,000-5,000
Lot 51
46 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 47 54 Two prayers ascribed to King Charles I, in Early Modern English, manuscript on paper [England, mid-seventeenth century (either c. 1648 or soon after 1660)]
Bifolium, first page with text in single column (title+10 lines in first prayer+36 lines in second prayer) in professional English vernacular hand, aligned to right hand edge, titles and first lines with ornate swirling penwork cadels, capitals in same, each prayer ending with penwork device and “Amen”, remaining pages blank, chain-lines but no watermark, small spots, else outstanding condition, 195 by 155mm.
The chaotic last years of Charles I’s reign, amid the successive waves of Civil War and the arrest and escape of the monarch, drew to a close with peace negotiations at Newport on the Isle of Wight. At this point, Cromwell refused to enter further talks with a tyrant, seized control and put the king on trial, leading to the execution of the monarch.
Lot 53 This leaf contains a copy of a prayer read publically by Charles I, after fasting and readings Lot 52 from the Book of Common Prayer, in blessing of the proposed treaty read at Newport on 21 September 1648 (under the title: “A prayer drawne by his M[ajesty’s] special direction and dictates”, and opening “O Most merciful Father, Lord God of Peace and Truth, We a People sorely afflicted by the Scourge of an unnatural War ...”). To this is appended an associated text, opening with the English translation of Psalm 94, and calling for peace (opening 52 θ “O Most just and powerfull Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth, we cannot but Lot 54 Venetian ducal document, issued by Doge Silvestro Valier in favour of Giovanni Tomaso di Colloredo and endorsing his acknowledge ...”). The first of these was circulated on a broadsheet of 1648 (see R. Lemon, inheritance of the family estates, in Latin, illuminated manuscript in contemporary binding [Italy (Venice), dated 8 March 1696] Catalogue of Collection of Printed Broadsides in Possession of Society of Antiquaries, London, 1866, no. 499), and so this may be a contemporary witness to these prayers during the tumultuous 39 leaves, textually complete, collation: once a single gathering of 50 leaves, then 11 leaves cut from end (presumably cancelled blanks, and before final events of the reign of Charles I. Alternatively, both texts were included in separate parts document was bound), contemporary foliation, single column of 20 lines in italic hand of ducal secretary Andrea Tiepolo, opening of text in liquid gold of a work published in 1660 (Brian Duppa, Private forms of prayer, fitted for the late sad-times, capitals decorated with gold foliate penwork, documents of Giovanni Tomaso and Conte Fabrizio di Colloredo dated 1702-1717 added at end of volume, 1660, pp. 323-4 and 329-33), as part of the revival of interest in the monarchy following the underlining and year added to frontispiece in red ochre, notes on Colloredo family events for 1699-1709 added to first endleaf, else in excellent condition, coronation of Charles II, and this copy may date instead to the months or years after that. 235 by 170mm.; contemporary dark brown leather over pasteboards, elaborately tooled with dense foliate frames around a central sun-like cabouchon on each board, some small bumps and scratches, overall good and solid condition £500-700
An impressive Venetian ducal document, in its original tooled binding. 55 £800-1,200 Broadsheet advertising prices for oysters in Lady Quarter (from the last week of December to Midsummer) in London, in English, manuscript on parchment [London (probably Billingsgate), dated December 1772] 53 Letters Patent granted by Oliver Cromwell as “Lord Protector of the Comonwealth of England, Scotland & Ireland” ratifying Single large sheet, with 6 lines of text in a good flowing italic hand, next to their dates and the transfer of lands at Croydon, Addington and Sanderstead, in Surrey, from Robert Williams to Henry Bowyer, in Early apparent buyer’s details, and beneath a 2-line title, blank on back, trimmed at one side with Modern English, large decorated document on parchment [England, dated 12 February 1656] slight losses to buyer’s names, later reused as folded cover for a smaller volume and hence with folds, cockling and discoloured section on reverse, 320 by 245mm. Large single sheet charter, with 26 long lines in an excellent English secretarial hand, opening line in ornamental capitals with capitals encased in penwork, one very large initial ‘O’ (opening “Oliver Lord Protector ...”) in calligraphic penwork, enclosing grey-wash flower, with further foliage filling This ephemeral notice was most probably produced to be pinned to a wall, and states upper border in same, the scribe “Pynsent” adding his name to lower right-hand foot and at head of seal tags, seal wanting (but fragments of wax that it is a list of the “Goods and Merchandizes Exported in Lady Quarter 1772”, but in adhering to seal tag), small spots and signs of folding, but overall in excellent condition, 425+35 by 680mm.; in large wooden frame fact only lists the consignments of oysters for an apparent Dutchman named Zirkzee, for Cornelis Magielsen, Leender de Graas and a client named Hilleford. The measurement A fine and handsome document from Commonwealth and Protectorate England. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) remains a controversial figure for these is the ‘wash’, a term unique to Billingsgate, and the amounts concerned are even today, viewed as either a regicidal and military dictator or a hero of liberty for his overseeing of the expulsion of King Charles I from considerable, with two deliveries of 28 wash (112 gallons) coming to £179, 4 sh. and the power, seizure of control, and trial and execution of the monarch. The present document comes from the last years of his life, following the last of 21 wash (84 gallons) to £134, 8 sh. Oysters were a staple food stuff of London in the dissolution of the ‘Barebones Parliament’ and Cromwell’s appointment as ‘Lord Protector’ for life and charged with complete control over the eighteenth century, and were sold by vendors on many street corners, and given out free administration of the government. Within a year of the issuing of this document he was offered the crown by Parliament, and after agonised in pubs in order to encourage customers to enter. It was from such a street vendor that Dr soul-searching, turned it down. Johnson famously purchased oysters to feed his cat Hodge.
£700-900 £100-200 Lot 55
48 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 49 Lot 56 56 θ Boniface VIII, Liber sextus decretalium, the Constitutiones clementinae and other collections of Papal judgements on aspects of Canon Law, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [France (Paris), mid-fourteenth century]
96 leaves (plus 3 paper endleaves at front and back), complete, collation: i10, ii-vii12, viii8, ix6 (iii and vi singletons, but no losses to text; this last quire an early addition and including 3 endleaves at back), some quire and leaf signatures, seventeenth- or eighteenth-century foliation in outer upright margin of rectos, double column of 45 lines of a good university hand, capitals touched in red, paragraph marks in red or dark blue, red rubrics (with hairline guides for rubricator often surviving in margins), running titles in alternate red or blue capitals, one-line initials in same, 2-line initials in same but with penwork flourishing in contrasting colour extending in long whip-like tendrils far into the margins, nine large variegated initials in red and blue with penwork infill and surrounds opening major text sections, the final additional quire with text in single column of 41 lines, with some sections here in double columns, all opened by a single red initial, slight cockling to first and last few leaves (with 2 small initials causing burn through of parchment on fol. 1), some rodent damage to edges of a number of leaves, small spots and stains, else good and presentable condition, 275 by 185mm.; eighteenth-century Italian paper-covered pasteboards printed with patterns of green leaves, corners and spine covered in brown leather, spine with gilt-tooled panel: “XXXI LIBR DECR MS.”, scuffed and bumped in places, overall solid in binding Lot 56 A handsome fourteenth-century legal codex, with a probable origin point among Italian law students studying in Paris, and a likely Text: provenance in the medieval library of the Dominican convent of San Domenico di Guzmán in Gaeta The Liber sextus decretalium was commissioned by Pope Boniface VIII from Guillaume de Mandagot, bishop of Embrun, Berenger Fredoli, bishop of Beziers and Ricardo Petroni of Siena, papal vice-chancellor, as a practical collection of papal letters (also known as decretals) that Provenance: contained clarification on individual points of Canon Law. It had been finished by 1298 when its pronouncements entered into law, and copies 1. Most probably written in Paris by a scribe who had trained in Italy: the script is a professional Italian littera bononiensis, but the decoration and were then disseminated to universities to replace earlier textbooks. Once in use, it came to be known as the Liber sextus, as it supplements some details of script (such as the use of the tironian ‘et’ symbol), indicate an origin in the French capital. The book was evidently completed the five books of Gregory IX’s Decretals, which had been promulgated in 1234. The present volume was probably ultimately copied from one there in the form it is now in, and the additions on fols. 89r-93v are in French hands. produced for teaching in the University of Paris, and addresses the doctors and scholars of that institution in its opening line (“... doctoribus et scolaribus universis Parisius”). To this has been added decretals judged of some importance, but outside the official compilation (here fols. 2. Probably from the Dominican convent of San Domenico di Guzmán, Gaeta, central Italy (founded 1229, expanded under Neapolitan royal 53v-59r). These are followed by the Constitutiones clementinae (fols. 59v-81v, also called the Liber septimus decretalium), which were compiled patronage from 1308 onwards, suppressed 1809 by Napoleonic army and reused as barracks, and its goods then scattered): part of a group of under Pope Clement V and sent to the University of Orleans and the Sorbonne in 1314, but more widely disseminated by his successor Pope eleven manuscripts of predominantly Dominican interest later owned by the Hispanic Society of America. As noted by Faulhaber, these are John XXII in 1317 (here prefaced by the latter’s introductory letter, again addressing the doctors and scholars of Paris). The main section of the all in identical bindings and with similar descriptions at foot of opening leaves in scrawling hand of the previous century (here “Decretalium book ends with a collection of further decretals of Clement V, including those from the Council of Vienne in 1311-12 (fols. 81v-83r), as well as sextus liber bonifacii” and “C 6”); and one of these certainly from the house (Peter of Tarentaise, Commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences those of Popes Martin IV (fols. 83r-85v), and John XXII (fols. 85v-89r). To this body, hands of the late fourteenth or fifteenth century then added with an ex libris “Iste liber est conventus sancti dominici de gayeta ordinis predicatorum” on fol. 1r and the classmark “E 5”: now Yale, an anonymous text beginning “In vita bonorum et optimorum primo Ethicorum ...” (fol. 89rv), a Declaratio constitutionis ‘Execrabilis’ of John Beinecke, MS. 1207: see Faulhaber, no. 35). Further shared features are the nineteenth-century inscriptions on their back pastedowns (here XXII (fols. 90r-92v), and an alphabetical subject index to the Liber sextus (fols. 93r-v). “Foglie # 100 Miniature # 7” and “Foglie No 100 Iniziali # 7 Segnato NAP”). Many of these codices had French features, and were presumably written by, or carried by, Italian students of the University of Paris, while returning home. A number of the group had brief French descriptions Published: of the nineteenth century (as here pasted inside front board, numbering this ‘XXXI’, agreeing with number on spine), and they appear to have A. García y García, ‘Manuscritos juridicos medievales de la Hispanic Society of America’, Revista Española de Derecho Canónico, 18 (1963), pp. been taken to France soon after the suppression of the house and entered the trade as a single unit there. 546-48, n. 1.
3. Hispanic Society of America, acquired in early twentieth century (perhaps in France), their B2565 (Faulhaber, pp. 127-8), with cataloguing in Charles B. Faulhaber, Medieval Manuscripts in the Library of the Hispanic Society of America, 1983, pp. 127-8. Spanish by A. García y García on a folded sheet of blue paper pasted to last endleaf; their sale in Christie’s, 12 November 2008, lot 26. £25,000-35,000
50 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 51 Lot 57
57 θ Antonius Azaro de Parma, Homilies, in Latin, decorated manuscript on paper [Germany (Ulm), dated 1393]
226 leaves (plus an endleaf at front and back), complete, collation: i-xvii12, xviii14, xix8, traces of occasional catchwords and quire signatures, double column of 38-40 lines of a series of late Gothic hands, opening words of each sermon in larger angular script, capitals touched in red in some sections, red paragraph marks, red rubrics, red underlining and simple red initials, red penwork boxes forming line-fillers between sermons, large opening initial in red strapwork enclosing trilobed design within its body, two leather tabs to mark major text openings, watermark close variant of Briquet 15021 (recorded Nuremberg in 1390; here ‘tête de boeuf’, but surmounted by a star rather than a cross), a few small spots and stains and a few wormholes, but overall in outstandingly fresh and crisp condition on heavy paper with wide and clean margins, 288 by 203mm.; fifteenth-century brown leather over bevelled wooden boards (bevelled in middle of board-edges in German fashion), tooled with diamond-shaped panels and various foliate stamps (one with Agnus Dei), remains of two brass clasps, small holes in leather on boards, losses of leather at top of spine and splitting at edges of boards, early monastic shelfmark on large paper label affixed to upper part of outer side of front board (“H19”) in medieval fashion, with title in same place “Sermones dominicales fratris an-/ thony permensis R V I P”, overall sturdy and robust condition; list of sermons and their corresponding reference nos. in Schneyer and Meersseman included with volume
A large collection of some 95 Sunday and Lenten sermons in a manuscript with a precise date and provenance in the fourteenth century, in a fine medieval binding; the whole in an outstanding state of preservation
Provenance: Lot 57 1. Additions to this book place it among the relatively small number of manuscripts for which we know almost all aspects of its creation. It was completed in 1393 for use by the Augustinian Canons of St. Michael’s zu den Wengen in Ulm (founded as a pilgrim hospital and waystation Text: from 1183 under the supervision of Augustinian Canons, closed briefly in the 1530s during the Reformation and reopened in 1549, and finally Antonius Azaro de Parma reached fame in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century as a Dominican preacher with a flair for simple closed in 1803 and its goods sold): here with dated colophon “Anno domini Mocococolxxxxiii In vigilias Octave ma[u]ri” and a fifteenth- and clear sermons expounding Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica. The first solid record of his works is a note of a copy of his sermons in century ex libris on the front endleaf: “Iste liber est fratrum conventus monasterii in insulis vulgariter zü denWengen”. Moreover, this second the convent of San Domenico in Bologna in 1381 (that copy now Bologna, Archiginnasio, A.216), and a small number of extant manuscripts inscription continues, identifying the man who had it bound in the present binding as Petrus Rem, priest of the church at Hörvelsingen (a survive from the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The texts here are a collection of his Sunday and Lenten Sermons, and like other early dependency of zu den Wengen), and perhaps it was in a temporary or loose binding for some decades after its creation. A further fifteenth- manuscripts of his sermons have a handful of variant texts and others otherwise unattributed to the author that suggest substantial variation century inscription on the same endleaf supports this, stating: “Hunc librum legavit monasterio sancti Michaelis/ Ad insulis ulme dominus in the earliest layers of the corpus (see G. Meersseman, ‘Le opere di Fra Antonio Azaro Parmense, O. P. nella Biblioteca Nazionale di Monaco petrus dictus rem / Vicarius ecclesie nostre in Hervelsingen”. di Baviera’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 10, 1940, pp. 20-47, at pp. 23-26). Neither Schneyer (Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters, 1969-1990) nor Kaeppeli (Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, I, 1970) lists a sermon collection for this author in this form, 2. By 1703, the book appears to have passed to nearby Wiblingen Abbey (Benedictine house, founded 1093, suffered greatly during Thirty and we have been unable to trace another copy. While the first group of sermons here have received some scholarly scrutiny (see M. Michèle Years’ War, secularised in 1806 and then goods auctioned off), where the document that is loosely enclosed within this volume was written. Mulchahey in Dominican Education Before 1350, 1998, p. 430), nothing has yet been written on the second group, and there is no modern edition The document attests to the death of A.P. Feliciano Müller in that year, during a siege by the French in the War of Spanish Succession, and is of these texts. Thus, this codex is deserving of much further careful study. signed and sealed by Abbot Modestus of Wiblingen. If correct, then this volume sat for some time on the shelves in that abbey’s celebrated Baroque library. £15,000-20,000
52 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 53 Lot 58
58 θ Bartholomeus de Sancto Concordio, Summa de casibus conscientiae, in Latin, stout pocket-sized illuminated manuscript on parchment [Italy (Milan), dated last day of January 1444]
361 leaves (plus a single thick parchment endleaf at front and back), complete, collation: i-xliv8, xlv9 (last a singleton added to complete text), many catchwords and quire and leaf signatures partially or completely trimmed away, double column of 33 lines of a small late Gothic Italian bookhand, index at end entirely in red penwork, capitals touched in red, paragraph marks in alternate red or blue, 2- to 3-line initials in red or blue encased in contrasting blue or purple penwork, larger initials with these angular and geometric penwork decorations extending the height of borders, some terminating in large bezants with stamen-like penwork tendrils, one initial at front (fol. 1v) in dark pink enclosing coloured foliage on gold grounds with painted acanthus spray in margin, frontispiece with 10-line initial in same, enclosing portrait of author as a tonsured Dominican friar with one hand on an open book, with pink, green and red angular foliage in margins on three sides (enclosing an unfilled coat-of-arms in bas-de-page), the fourth side with two large bezants, leaves at each end with slight cockling, stains to edges of frontispiece and losses to edges of decoration there, small smudge to background of author’s portrait, lower outermost corner of fol. 1 once lost and now filled with modern parchment, borders of last leaf torn in places, some small spots and stains throughout, but overall in fine and fresh condition on cream/yellow parchment with wide and clean margins, 170 by 125mm.; later parchment binding over thin pasteboards (perhaps nineteenth century) with yapp edges, Early Modern library classmark (probably monastic) of ‘L’ followed by erased number at head of spine, later “Barthol: de Pisis / Summa Casuum / Manoscritti / del / 1444” in pen lower on spine
Provenance: Completed by a scribe who names himself Roland “de sabbelie” (perhaps the estate attached to Castel Savelli, Lazio) on the last day of January 1444 in Milan: colophon in red on fol. 354v at end of main text. A final line added by the same hand below that inscription: “Philippi de Florentia” may well indicate the original owner..
Text: Bartholomaeus de Sancto Concordio (1262-1347; also Barthomeo Granchi and Bartolomeus Pisanus) entered the Dominican Order in 1277, studied at Bologna and Paris, and taught logic in Italian Dominican convents before returning to Pisa around 1335. He gained fame as a preacher, poet and teacher of canon and civil law. This is greatest work, a vast penitential survey of the whole subject of moral theology, with detailed examples taken from Canon Law, created for practical use by preachers. It was finished c. 1338, and was based on the Summa confessorum of another Dominican, Johannes of Freiburg (d. 1314). What Bartholomeus added was an alphabetical arrangement of the subject matter, setting aside the older and cumbersome thematic arrangement of the topics. It was enormously popular, and hundreds of manuscripts have been traced in European libraries by J. Dietterle (‘Die Summae confessorum (sive de casibus conscientiae) von ihren Anfangen an bis Silvester Prierias’, Zeitschrift für Kirckgeschichte, 27, 1906, pp. 166-70), with that list revised by S. Kuttner (A Catalogue of Canon and Roman Law Manuscripts in the Vatican Library, 1986, II:25-31). In the fourteenth century it was translated into Italian by Giovanni delle Celle (d. 1394; see Yale University, Beinecke Library, MS 759), and was among the first books printed in Germany, France, and Italy.
£15,000-20,000 Lot 58
54 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 55 Lot 59 59 θ Legal compendium, drawing on Justinian, Institutiones, and Bartolo da Sassoferrato, Quaestio et Repetitio, in Latin, manuscript on paper [Italy, second half of fifteenth century (c. 1481)]
130 leaves (plus a paper flyleaf), complete, collation: i10, ii-iii14, iv-ix10, x12, xi-xii10, single column, 19 lines in an appealing and legible semi-humanist hand strongly influenced by secretarial and vernacular forms, texts opening in lines of small capitals, titles in ornamental capitals (often with baubles set in their mid-points and with letters run together and set within others, probably emulating Romanesque witnesses), numerous contemporary pointing fingers and other small marginalia, small spots and stains, tears to a few margins, some leaves in first gathering loose, else excellent condition, 222 by 150 mm.; bound in seventeenth- or eighteenth-century card covers, title in ink on spine (mostly rubbed away)
This volume clearly dates to the second half of the fifteenth century, and a note on fol. 25v bears the date 1481. However, its apparent ex libris at the head of fol. 1r (“Domini Dominici de Prato”, repeated again in slightly more calligraphic script in the same place on fol. 11r) points instead towards the first half of the century, and to the important and well-known Florentine jurist and poet Domenico da Prato, who was the author of several love sonnets as well as a long laudatory verse narrating the struggle of the Florentines against the cruel and paranoid Filippo Maria Visconti (see Dizionario Bibliografico degli Italiani, XL, 1991). He died at some point in the 1430s or 1440s, making it unlikely that he could have owned this book. It is notable the both notes of ownership appear to be in the same hand (and in the first case, ink hue) as the text they were apparently added to, when such notes were more usually added later once the book had been finished, bound and presented to the new owner. Thus, this may well be a clean copy of a book which was his, even copying across his notes of ownership as the crucial piece of authenticating provenance, and perhaps preserving his marginalia and notes (as well as others made up to the 1480s by a subsequent user).
If correct, then this manuscript is of some importance for the history of medieval law. Domenico was associated with the first wave of humanists, such as Coluccio Salutati, and was friends with other Florentine luminaries, such as Antoninus Florentinus, who would later be archbishop of the city and compose his famous confessional. Domenico was also an important legal commentator of his age, although study of this aspect of his life has been held back by the small number of surviving records. A handful of notarial materials survive in the Archivio de Stato in Florence, but here we have a compilation of law apparently assembled and ordered by him.
£8,000-12,000
Lot 59
56 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 57 60 θ Werner Rolevinck, De fraterna correctione and Tractatulus de forma visitationum, in Latin, large manuscript on paper [Germany (most probably Cologne, perhaps the Charterhouse there), most probably late 1460s or early 1470s]
30 leaves (plus a modern paper endleaf at front and back), uncollatable, but text continuous and thus complete, a few remnants of catchwords showing quires of 8 leaves with first quire of 7 (most probably first original leaf a cancelled blank), double column of 31 lines of a fine late Gothic bookhand, ruled in pale red, capitals touched in bright red, authors’ names underlined in same red, red rubrics, simple 2-line red initials (a few spaces left for others), each text opening with red initials with blank paper strapwork left in body, infilled and encased with red foliate penwork, watermarks of a jug or water pitcher (see below), edges of leaves with prickmarks and apparently untrimmed at vertical edges, a few stains and spots, one leaf with professionally closed tear to edge of leaf, slight discolouration to first and last leaves, else in excellent condition with wide and clean margins, 290 by 210mm.; modern dark brown leather over pasteboards, ruled with double fillet on each board
A handsome monastic manuscript, produced in the lifetime of the author, and most probably from Cologne and thus within his circle
Provenance: Most probably produced in Cologne or its vicinity around 1470: the watermark here, a jug with distinctively curled lips at top and bottom of the handle, falls within a tight knit group of watermarks (represented in Briquet nos. 12476-12484; produced 1471 to 1484 widely, but focussing on Cologne and the surrounding area). It is perhaps closest to examples from the late 1460s and early 1470s. At the end of the first text (fol. 29v) are signatories from Cologne and the Charterhouse there (founded 1334, later the largest in Germany, suppressed and looted in 1794), attesting to the accuracy of this copy, and they may locate the origin of this manuscript there. In the same place a contemporary hand similar to, but distinct from, the main one (note different form of ‘g’ with hairline stroke from end of tail to under bowl), added “S. gruter” apparently in the same red ink used for rubrics, most probably recording the rubricator’s name (to be expanded as ‘Scripsit Gruter’ or ‘Sebastian Gruter’, or any other name beginning with ‘S’).
Text: This is a fine monastic copy of two rare works in manuscript by an important and understudied author. Werner Rolevinck (1425-1502) was a native of Westphalia, who was educated at Cologne and in 1447 entered the Carthusian cloister of St. Barbara in that city. Abbot Trithemius who visited him there about 1495 speaks of an ‘extraordinarily diligent and prolific author’ of thirty or more works on theology and sacred history. However, with the exception of his Fasciculus Temporum (a manuscript copy of which, ex Ritman collection, was sold in June 2012 by PBA Galleries, San Francisco, for $102,000), few of his works are known in anything other than print copies, and they are notably rare on the market.
On first inspection, this book resembles the earliest printings of the two works (1477 and 1475, respectively, by Arnold ter Hoernen in Cologne) in layout, penwork decoration and script, so closely that one could be forgiven for dismissing it as a copy of those printings. However, the watermark indicates a probable date before them, and it stands apart from the print copies in not repeating orthographic errors in those, and having different abbreviation patterns. Instead, it is more probably a copy produced within a monastic community, under the supervision of the author, in an attempt to disseminate the work in large numbers of carefully corrected copies to other related monastic communities, with such efforts being overtaken by the arrival of printing some years later. The same scribes, correctors and rubricators may well have worked on both manuscript and then print copies. If correct, then this copy is of some importance as having the name of one of the book producers involved, and it may yet have its part to play in the history of book production in Cologne in this crucial period when print had not yet dominated the market.
£7,000-9,000
Lot 60
58 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 59 Lot 61 61 θ Soliloquia animae ad deum, attributed to Augustine, prayers attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux and Anselm of Canterbury, and other works including a Gospel Harmony, all in Middle Dutch translation, decorated manuscript on paper [Low Countries or adjacent Rhineland, mid- to late fifteenth century]
Lot 61 216 leaves (plus 2 paper endleaves at front [one half torn away] and 4 more at back), perhaps wanting singleton (see below), else complete, collation: i-xiii8, xiv8 (perhaps wanting a single leaf at end with last few words of chapter 38 of ‘Soliloquia’), xv-xxvii8, catchwords and some quire and leaf signatures remaining, single column of 21 lines of a vernacular Dutch bookhand, rubrics in red, simple initials in red, major text openings with large blue initials with blank paper designs left within their bodies, enclosed by and encased within ornate red penwork, spaces left for a few initials or rubrics, watermark of a ‘Gothic’ ‘P’ in common form found across Low Countries and neighbouring regions of Germany from mid-fifteenth century up to c. 1500, additions of devotional material on two endleaves at back, last gathering torn at head of spine and loosening from book there, frontispiece a little smudged and discoloured, other small spots, holes and rodent damage at corners of some leaves, but overall good and sturdy condition, 140 by 105mm.; contemporary binding of dark brown leather over bevelled wooden boards, tooled with double fillet and flowerheads, stars in circles and fleur-de-lys, remains of a single brass clasp, leaves from a pocket Breviary of fourteenth century used as pastedowns, sewn on three double thongs (middle one split at attachment to front board), binding a little worn, with splits to edges of spine exposing sewing structures, headband becoming loose, scratches to boards, overall fair condition
Provenance: 1. Written for use in the Low Countries or nearby Rhineland in the mid-fifteenth century or following half century. The later female ownership suggests that it was made for, and perhaps by, a nun. 2. Mettel van Zoutelande (in municipality of Veere, Zeeland) in “1520”: dated ex libris inscription at end of additions to text.
Text: This is a charming and honest monastic book bringing together devotional material, a large collection of prayers and a Gospel Harmony. It includes: (a) fols. 1r-112v, Soliloquia animae ad deum, attributed falsely to Augustine (here in translation: “Hier beghynt dat boeck der vereninge mit gade des gloriosen heiligen vaders sunte Austinus in latyn soli loquium ...”; (b) fols. 113r-121v, Bernard of Clairvaux, prayers of indulgence; (c) fols. 122r-180r, a collection of prayers ascribed to Anselm of Canterbury (“Ancelmus des eertschen bischop van cantelen”, followed by further devotional extracts; and (d) fols. 185r-200r, Gospel Harmony, ending with reading from the Passion of Christ.
£3,000-5,000
60 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 61 Lot 62
62 θ Lactantius, Divinarum Institutionum Libri VII, in Latin, large and handsome Renaissance manuscript on paper [Italy (central or north), c. 1450]
136 leaves (plus a modern endleaf at front and back), complete, collation: i-xi10, xii-xiii8, xiv10 (last leaf blank), catchwords, some leaf signatures in original pen in arabic numerals, innermost and outermost gutters of gatherings supported with strips of blank white parchment, single column of 36 lines in a good semi-humanist hand, original scribal error on fol. 133, with the scribe apparently working with bifolia in disbound state, and two in this last gathering misordered when scribe worked (hence fol. 134r blank, and 134v with duplicate text that was already correctly copied on the other leaf of the bifolium: fol. 130, and then struck through with penstroke; so text continuous from end of fols. 133v to top of 135r), spaces left for Greek text, Lot 62 rubrics and titles, small amount of contemporary corrections and marginalia, text ends with “Finis” in ornamental capitals, watermarks of tulip-like flower and scissors (widespread across Italy in 1440s to 1460s), and of rust mark in margin between fols. 129 and 130 from medieval nail once trapped between leaves, some small spots and a few wormholes, dents in first few leaves from metalwork once attached to original front board, but overall in The Middle Ages took little interest in him, but that changed with the rediscovery of his works by the humanists. From the late fourteenth outstandingly fresh and clean condition with wide margins, 330 by 235mm.; bound in nineteenth-century half-vellum over pasteboards covered with century he was portrayed as the ideal Christian orator, with early humanists such as Gianfrancesco Pico dell Mirandola calling him the brown marbled paper, green leather label with “Manoscritti Antico” laid onto spine, small bumps and scuffs, else good condition ‘Christian Cicero’. Leonardo Bruni recommended Lactantius’s works above all others: ‘But the greatest of all those who have ever written of the Christian religion, the one who excels them all with his brilliance and richness of expression, is Lactantius Firmianus, without doubt the A fine codex of an important Renaissance text in a notably large format, originally produced as a high quality copy, and in an most eloquent of all Christian authors ...’. The opera omnia of his works (1465) was among the very first books printed in Italy by Sweynheim exceptionally good state of preservation and Pannartz, and the first to use a Greek alphabet font. Lacantius was one of the most frequently published patristic authors, with fifteen further editions produced in the fifteenth century, and 112 by 1800. Provenance: 1. Copied for a wealthy Italian patron or library in the mid-fifteenth century. This codex contains a copy of his vast magnum opus, the Divinarum institutionum libri VII (the Divine Institutions), and was written during his period of exile from the imperial court. It is composed of seven books that set out a systematic exposition of Christian theology, 2. In French speaking ownership, perhaps in Florence, in the early nineteenth century: a large manuscript label pasted to the inside of the and build an argument intended to show the reasonableness and truth of Christianity and the futility of pagan beliefs. Its fundamentally front board, and partly readable through the ink bleeding through the paper leaf later pasted over this, in French and naming that city and the Christian character ensured it escaped the censor, but it also offered its Renaissance readers a sourcebook of lost Latin Classics and echoes date 1811. This label above the number ‘5’ within a circle. of the Ancient World. It includes substantial quotations from two lost works by Cicero, the Hortensius and Consolatio, and Lactantius knew and quoted a complete copy of Cicero’s De Legibus, a text which now survives only in a fragmentary state (see R.M. Ogilvie, The Library of Text: Lactantius, 1978, pp. 59-63). Book IV of the Divinarum institutionum also includes some seventy-three quotations from the Old Latin Bible Lactantius (more properly Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius; c. 250-c. 325) is one of the most important literary and theological writers (Vetus Latina), with important variants for Luke 3:22 where the text is conflated with Psalm 2:7 as in other Vetus Latina witnesses and the of the early Church. He was a native of Roman North Africa, a celebrated rhetorician and Christian apologist, as well as advisor to Constantine Codex Bezae, and John 1:1-3, where Lactantius uses “verbum” rather than “sermo” as a translation of λόγος, agreeing with Western witnesses the Great and tutor to his son. He was appointed to a lectureship in Nicomedia by Emperor Diocletian, and entered the imperial circle, rather than Eastern or African ones (these quotations tabulated by Ogilvie, pp. 98-100). where he must have met the future emperor Constantine who held the office of military tribune in the court. It was probably there that he became a passionate convert to Christianity, and famously destroyed all his earlier writings and resigned his post ahead of Diocletian’s purge The explosion of humanist interest in the text resulted in over 150 extant manuscript witnesses to it, almost all of the fourteenth and fifteenth of Christians and the first imperial edict against the religion in the year 303. Jerome records that he then lived in poverty, supporting himself centuries. However most are in institutional collections, and only a handful have appeared on the open market in the last half century. by his writing, until Constantine came to power and recalled him to the imperial court in 311/13. In advanced old age, he became tutor to Constantine’s son Crispus, and presumably died in the 320s. £25,000-35,000
62 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 63 63 θ Humanist compendium, including letters by Donato Acciaioli, and other similar works, with notes from Classical texts and Canon Law, in Latin with a few words in Greek, short sections in Italian, manuscript on paper [Italy (probably Palermo, Sicily), at either end of the fifteenth century (c. 1422, and then probably 1484)]
66 leaves (plus a more modern paper endleaf at front and back), complete, collation: i8,ii-iv10, v6, vi10, vii12, texts in varying humanist hands and of different line lengths, but all single column, and first text in 21 lines of a fine humanist hand, red rubrics and simple red initials for first text, watermarks of gauntlet surmounted by a flower, simple tower, scales and elaborate letter ‘P’ (see below), fol. 63 with burn-hole in bas-de-page, some spots, stains and discoloured areas, but overall in good and presentable condition, 223 by 150mm.; card binding (perhaps contemporary) stitched with leather thongs, with “637” and illegible title on spine in faded ink
A fascinating humanist compendium, with a probable provenance in Palermo, and thus a rare witness to Sicilian interest in Renaissance learning
Provenance: Apparently written for a humanist scholar on Sicily in two stages at opposite ends of the fifteenth century, initially around 1422 and later in 1484. The earliest section is that now fols. 29-38, written with a scrawling hand and with a watermark of a simple tower with three spiked turrents, identical to Briquet 15,864, and elsewhere recorded in several Italian cities in the first half of the fifteenth century, including Palermo in 1422. Then the section in the most accomplished humanist hand (here fols. 1-18) was apparently added, this with a watermark of a large gauntlet surmounted by a five-petalled flower, and tied at the wrist with a visible bulge for the knot on the outer side of the wrist, an extremely close variant of Briquet 11,158 (recorded Palermo. 1468). This part has dates of completion added in at the end of texts on fols. 13r (“1470”) and 13v (“id mar. 1479”). Around the same time, the sections in fols. 19-28 and 39-55 were added, with their common simple scale within a circle watermark, and dates of “Die 26 Novembris hora 6, 1484” and “Vale vijj Calendas Aprilis 1484” at end of letters copied on fols. 44r and 45v. The compendium was completed by the appending of the last 12 leaves, these with a watermark with an elaborate letter ‘P’ with a sweeping curled backstroke, almost an exact match for Briquet 8492 (Rome, 1484, differing only in the width of the curling lappet and its foliate lips at its terminal).
Sicilian humanism is greatly unstudied, and indeed little can be discerned beyond the careers of a handful of scholars such as Antonio Beccadelli (‘Il Panormita’, 1394-1471), Pietro Ranzano (1428-92), Tommaso Schifaldo (1430-c. 1500) and Antonio Veneziano (1543-93), and the observation that their work tended towards a Christian focussed view of Renaissance subjects. As such any Renaissance text from the region adds greatly to our knowledge.
Text: The earliest section of the volume is a series of extracts of quotations and moral information from Classical sources (here fols. 29r-38r), naming Cicero, Varro, Ulpian, Sallust, Quintilian, Ovid, Virgil, Martial, Titus Livy, Plautus, Juvenal and Terence, among others. Then a series of speeches ascribed to variants of a pseudonym “De Pisis” or “B.P. Pistorius”, were added to this (fols. 1r-18v). This author cannot be firmly identified in other records. The works are skilled and indicate academic accomplishments (especially medical). The last refers to the date 9 December 1479 in reference to a new ‘interpretation’ of the works of Valerius Maximus. Given the proposed origin of the volume he may well have been a Sicilian author about whom little can now be known outside of the present witness. This last section is sandwiched between quires containing notes from various sources (fols. 19-28 and 39-55), including Canon Law (fol. 19rv), a “defensio ab homicidio” (fol. 22rv), and numerous copies of and extracts from fifteenth-century letters (some discussing humanist studies: see fols. 52v-54r), as well as notes of a theological nature, including a section of Peter Lombard’s, Sententiarum IV:3 (fols. 50r-51v).
The final part here contains the works of Donato Acciaioli (1429-78). He was perhaps the best known orator and politician in the age of Lorenzo de’ Medici. He knew the greatest humanists of his day personally, including Vespaniano da Bisticci and Pogglio Bacciolini, and was a member of the Accademia Fiorentina, with his own studies focussing on translations of Greek philosophical works. This volume includes some of his lesser known works, consolatory letters addressed to Pandolpho de Pandolphinis dated 23 November 1456, and to Laurentio and Iuliano Medici dated 22 July 1471. These are followed by a speech in the form of an open letter on a public address by Cosmo de’ Medici, dated 20 March 1464. This ends with a letter of Donato Acciaioli to Giovanni Pontano, dated September 1477.
£10,000-15,000
Lot 63
64 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 65 64 θ Battistino de Tonsis, Historia della presa di Tripoli, in Italian, with Latin and Italian verses addressed to the author and the dedicatee Gerolamo Adorno, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Italy (Naples), dated 20 October 1510]
54 leaves (plus a single paper endleaf at each end, and a later parchment endleaf at front with title in pen), wanting two leaves at beginning (quire signatures begin “aiii”, these most probably once a blank endleaf and another with the name of the author and formal title of the text down to “... Como successe al Insula Ghierbia” that are now found at the head of the first original leaf here (the missing opening lines recorded by M. Guistiniani, ‘Gli scrittori liguri descritti dall’abbate Michele Giustiniani patritio’, 1667, p. 131, foot of column 1 there), else complete, contemporary quire and leaf signatures, collation: i8 (wanting first 2 leaves), ii-vi8, vii6, single column of 13 lines of a fine humanist hand, rubrics and crucial words in red, initials in simple red or dark blue, some gold capitals used in dedication on fol. 2v, frontispiece of main text with two initials in liquid gold on blue grounds, text opening with 4 lines of red capitals, full decorated border of realistic jewels, gilt architectural foliate sprays and columns and white flowers on green, blue and burgundy grounds, enclosing coat-of-arms of Adorno family with green wreath in bas-de-page, text faded and slightly flaked in places, with some words overwritten, discolouration of parchment at foot of frontispiece original to leaf, slight smudging to arms, 182 by 120mm.; later French calf over pasteboards, spine gilt-tooled, some small scuffs and bumps, small loss of leather at foot of spine, else good condition
The sole recorded manuscript witness to this unedited and unstudied text, a lengthy eye-witness account of the Spanish conquest of Muslim Tripoli in 1510; and this the author’s presentation copy to his patron
Provenance: 1. This must be the presentation copy produced by the author of the main text, Battistino de Tonsis (fl. 1500), for his patron, Count Gerolamo Adorno (1483-1523), himself brother of the doge of Genoa, and a celebrated politician and diplomat in his own right (Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, I, 1960, pp. 296-98). The text here is dedicated to “Hieronymo Adorno Conte de Renda” in gold capitals on the leaf facing the arms of the Adorno family. The codex is dated at its end on fol. 54v: “Scripta in Napoli A di xx de Octobre Nel Mille cinquece[n]to dece”. Gerolamo Adorno appears to have been a substantial art patron, and is reported as having received a work by Titian as a gift from Paolo Giovio.
2. Almost certainly still in Genoa in the 1630s, and this copy evidently recorded there by Michele Guistiniani (1612-80), noting some of the dedicatory verses at its front. Note that there Guistiniani refers to another copy in the Bodleian (following Catalogus librorum bibliothecae publicae¸1605, p. 337), but his comments about its royal commission reveal it to be the similarly titled work of A. Ulloa instead.
3. In French ownership by the nineteenth century: rebound before then reusing a cutting from a French printed proclamation with the date 1782 as an endleaf. The present volume thus almost certainly that recorded by H. Ternaux-Compans (1807-64), French bibliographer, in his Bibliothèque Asiatique et Africaine in 1841, as no. 2956: “Batestino de Tonsis, Historia della guerra di Tripoli di Barbaria , in-4, 1610” (albeit with a small typographical error for its year). Lot 64 4. Re-emerging in a private collection in Spain, then Gonnelli Casa d’Aste, Florence, 7 November 2009, lot 122.
66 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 67 Text: The main text here is an eye-witness account of the invasion of Muslim Tripoli by a Spanish-Genoese fleet under the command of Don Pedro Navarro (c. 1460-1528), count of Oliveto. This was a key part of an ongoing struggle throughout the sixteenth century between the Hapsburgs of Spain and the Ottoman Empire and their allies (here the Berber Hafsid rulers who controlled Tripoli, backed by the sea-power of Barbary pirates), for control of the rich trade routes between Libya and southern Europe. The narrative begins here with the departure of the Spanish and Genoese from the island of Favignana near Sicily, and onwards to Melita (Mdina on Malta) and the city of Tripoli. Some detail is given on the weather conditions, and once the narrative reaches Libya itself, on the form of the initial assault on the citadel and the city of Tripoli with cannon and ‘bombarde’ and the forces of Galleazzo Guistiniani of Genoa. The author notes that the Muslim inhabitants withdrew to the citadel, the “Moscheta maiore, id est Ecclesia” (‘Grand Mosque, that is [their] church’) and some towers, from where they continued to fight. After the fall of the city most of the citizens, including elderly men and women, children and young girls of noble birth gathered in the Grand Mosque, where they were massacred by the invaders. The invaders then moved on to the citadel, where “il signoranzi Tiranno chiamato” (‘the lord [who was] called Tiranno’) was imprisoned, explaining that “in quel linguagio” (‘in their language’) he was called “Sieche” (an Italian attempt to spell ‘sheikh’), along with his wives and children. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only source to name the ruler of Tripoli at this time. There then follows an account of the pre-existing problems between this ruler and “Re de Tunesi” (‘king of Tunisia’). Following the account of the invasion, there is a geographical account of the city of Tripoli, noting it was protected on three sides with a double wall and a moat, the remaining side open to the sea with mooring for 400 ships, and that during the assault it was these defences that trapped the population, and the only escapees did so through a weak point in the walls in the Jewish quarter. A section on the geography of the neighbouring regions follows, partly drawn from Western sources. From here the narrative turns to the failed attempt to capture the island of Djerba. It ends with the leaving of Tripoli under the command of two generals, named Samaniego and Palumbino, and an account of the return of the navy to Naples, where this account was written.
Sources for the campaign are few. A single letter by the commander of the Spanish forces survives, as does an account in the ‘diary’ of Marin Sanuto, and two letters written by our author here to his patron as battlefield reports, dated 17 July and 26 September 1510 (edited from the sole surviving copies in a University of Bologna manuscript by M. Longhena, ‘L’Impresa di Tripoli nel 1510’, Rivista d’Africa, II, 1912, and discussed again in his ‘La Spedizione contro Tripoli del 1510 (Da documenti bolognesi)’, L’Archiginnasio XXXI (1936), pp. 242-270). Comparison of those letters with this narrative reveals that the present text is a greatly augmented version of the letters in the Bologna manuscript, written up at leisure, a month or so after our author returned to Naples. Thus, this lengthy eye- witness narrative is of substantial historical importance, but due to a mid-nineteenth-century blunder over its date and its survival in private hands, has been all but overlooked until now. No other copy of this text has been traced by us, and beyond the authorship of Lot 64 the letters discussed by Longhena, no record of the text or the author exists in bibliographical works such as Kristeller’s Iter Italicum. It is most probably the sole witness to the text to survive, and thus its appearance now at auction presents a crucial opportunity for its acquisition and subsequent study. Published: The volume comprises: laudatory verse addressed to the author and attributed here in the rubric to the Neapolitan poet Alfonso di Gli scrittori liguri descritti dall’abbate Michele Giustiniani patritio, 1667, p. 131. Gennaro (d. c. 1533), in Latin: “I pede intrepido, i, libelle liber ...”, and Italian: “Coltha mio Baptistin ...” (fols. 2r-2v); a short verse H. Ternaux-Compans, Bibliothèque Asiatique et Africaine ou catalogue des ouvrages rélatifs à l’Asie et à l’Afrique qui ont paru depuis le dé couverte de addressing the dedicatee Gerolamo Adorno and attributed to the Sicilian poet Pietro Gravina: “Inclite Adorne Comes Rende ...” (fol. l’imprimerie jusqu’en 1700, 1841. 3r); a short dedicatory text ‘Baptistino de Tonsis de Monteacuto de la prouicia de Lyguria essendo presentialmente interuenuto alla L. Playfair, The Bibliography of the Barbary States, 1887, item 49. expugnatione de Tripoli & iactura deli Ghierbi ... Signor Lo Signor Hieronymo Adorno Conte de Renda & c” (fol. 3v); the Historia della S. Bono, Storiografia e fonti occidentali sulla Libia, 1510-1911, 1982, 2, p. 66 (however, following the miscopying of the date by Ternaux-Compans, presa di Tripoli, beginning: “Curreuano li Anni del Signor Millecinquecento & dece ...” (fols. 4r-54v), ending with the colophon. this author assumes this was an extremely rare printed book produced in 1610).
£40,000-60,000
68 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 69 65 θ Vocabulario militaris, extracted from Roberto Valturio, De re militari, book VIII with illustrations from book X of the same, illustrated manuscript in Latin, on paper [Italy (probably north or central), last decades of fifteenth century]
18 leaves (including two blanks at end, plus one original endleaf at front with title, and a modern paper endleaf at front and back), wanting a single cancelled blank at end (fol. 17 in original or early foliation), first gathering with 12 leaves and thereafter numerous leaves separated from their sister leaves and uncollatable, but the original or early foliation 1-19 continuous (apart from 17, as noted above), thus textually complete, single column of c. 35 lines in an angular hand based on humanist script, initials set off in margin along with single words acting as a reference to content of adjacent text, divided into alphabetically organised entries with first words of each alphabetical entry in red capitals (in form “De Littera ...” ) and initial words for each sub-entry in red, red rubrics (now faded), seven penwork illustrations in the margins (see below), watermark an eagle with downward pointing wings and a small crown, related to Briquet 82-92 (wide range mostly across north and central Italy, from Udine 1479 to Florence and Faenza in opening years of sixteenth century), bifolia bound in with small paper guards inserted along gutter where stitching occurs, early twentieth-century pencil notes in German on verso of original endleaf, some discolouration to first page and small stains elsewhere, some sections of lower borders cut away, else in fair and presentable condition, 300 by 209mm., nineteenth-century marbled paper over pasteboards, small losses of paper at spine
Roberto Valturio (1405-75) was an Italian military engineer, who served Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini, and produced the military treatise, De rei militari. It was widely disseminated and became the most popular handbook for Renaissance princes and military leaders. The cycle of illustrations which accompany the text in manuscript and in the editio princeps of 1472, have been attributed to Matteo de Pasti, a medallist and illuminator in Sigismondo Pandolfo s retinue. This is an epitome of book VIII of Valturio's work, rearranging the information there into an easily consultable reference tool. The early foliation here which runs from 1-19, as well as the copying of some of the diagrams from book X of the text, argue against this manuscript once serving as an appendix to an early printed copy of the text. It would appear to be the author's own copy, with some cross references added as afterthoughts, and with a small number of overlooked entries included out of alphabetical sequence at the end.
The illustrations are of (i) a bow (fol. 2v); (ii) a war machine on wheels used for protecting troops while they approach a fortified wall with battering rams (fol. 7r), and (iii) another as yet unidentified perhaps of some form of banners with bells and tapering points; (iv) a smaller siege engine named the musculus (fol. 8v), and (v) a tri-pronged metal head to a battering ram set within the text; (vi) a castle- high pillar with a lever at its top, allowing the operator to raise a bucket with a soldier to the height of the wall, and (vii) a tortoise- headed battering ram mounted on wheels ramming a turret (fol. 13r).
£6,000-8,000
Lot 65
70 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 71 66 θ Book of Hours, Use of Sarum, in Latin with Middle English inscription, illuminated manuscript on parchment [southern Netherlands (presumably Bruges) for English use, c. 1430 and later fifteenth century]
134 leaves (plus one original endleaf at front and back), wanting a leaf or two from the added texts at end, else apparently complete, single column of 17 lines in a late gothic bookhand, capitals touched in red, rubrics in red, one- line initials in blue and liquid gold with contrasting penwork, larger initials in gold on blue and pink grounds with white penwork (six of these with coloured and gold text frames on three sides), one large initial in blue enclosing a spray of foliage on burnished gold grounds, with full border of coloured flowers and gold foliage and ivy-leaves, six full-page miniatures in rectangular gold frames (i. p. 23, the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket; ii. p. 27, St. George killing the dragon; iii. p. 31, St. John the Baptist; iv. p. 37, the Virgin and Child; v. p. 115, Judgement Day; vi. p. 151, a funeral service), pp. 226-69 an addition of the late fifteenth century with prayers on Christ and his Passion, the miniatures on pp. 31 and 37 rubbed and the latter partly cut away, somewhat scuffed and rubbed throughout with small losses to edges of a few leaves and one or two rubbed to point of becoming thin and with small holes, overall fair condition, 120 by 82mm.; limp parchment binding with cloth ties Lot 66 Provenance: 1. Produced in the Southern Netherlands for English use c. 1430, perhaps for Bennett Nellson, who signed the famous inscription on the front endleaf of this codex. By the sixteenth century the book had passed to one William Parker, perhaps the namesake who held office as the last abbot of St. Peter’s, Gloucester, before his death in 1540 (see P. Raes, p. 184).
2. Freeman Clarke Samuel Roper (1819-1896), botanist; his sale in Sotheby’s, 31 March 1887, lot 71.
3. Captain William Alfred Cragg (1859-1950), of Threekingham, Norfolk, Lincolnshire antiquarian and manuscript collector; by descent to his son, William Gilliat Cragg (1883-1956; High Sheriff of Lincolnshire) and thence to his grandson, Major William John Rollo, ADC to the governor of Hong Kong; his sale in Sotheby’s, 10 December 1962, lot 145, to Alan Thomas; his cat. 11 (1963), no. 115.
4. June O’Donnell (1898-1979) of Guildford (who also owned the Calendar of the Hungerford Hours and the two Orcadian charters sold in our Schøyen sale, 8 July this year, lot 79, among other manuscripts), and by descent to her son, Peter E. Raes (1924-2010); acquired from him by a private collector and thence Sotheby’s, 10 July 2012, lot 36, to the present owner, an American collector, for £12,500.
72 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 73 Text: The Middle English inscription at the front of this book is among the most well-known anathemas in any book from medieval England, loaded with dark menace, but as Raes notes containing a sentiment “any collector can sympathize with”. The inscription runs:
“He that stelles [“He that steals thes boke he this book, he Shal be hanked shall be hanged Apon on hoke upon a hook Behend the behind the ketchen dor kitchen door”]
pro me Bennet nell son”
As de Hamel notes (1986, p. 185), Bennett Nellson, who wrote and signed this inscription, saw this as “the most awful threat imaginable”, and the severity of the threat here shows that this codex “was a very precious possession in that household. It was probably their only book”. However, there is perhaps a deeper meaning as well, in a common Middle English allusion to Hell as a kitchen where carcasses were butchered. The hook here is doubtless a meat hook secured on the door for the suspension of an animal carcass, and recalls the devilish kitchen threatened by one of Chaucer’s unscrupulous friars on the sinner: “Ful hard it is with flesshook or with oules [spiked irons] / To be yclawed, or to brenne or bake”, and depicted in a copy of Walter Hilton’s mystical works in an illustration of two devils torturing a soul dragged from a corpse suspended above a roaring fire (sold at Sotheby’s, 6 December 2011, lot 45, and now Princeton, Taylor MS. 22: D.C. Skemer, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, 2013, I).
This volume comprises: a Calendar (p. 10), with SS. Wulfstan, Cuthbert, Aldhelm, Edmund, the translation of Swithun and Oswald; followed by Suffrages to a number of saints, including SS. Thomas Becket (p. 24) and George (p. 28); the Hours of the Virgin, with Matins (p. 38), Lauds (p. 52, incorporating further suffrages as common in English use), Prime (p. 78), Terce (p. 86), Sext (p. 90), None (p. 94), Vespers (p. 98), and Compline (p. 102); the Seven Penitential Psalms (p. 110) with a Litany; the Office of the Dead (p. 152) and the Commendatio animarum (p. 200). The book ends with additions of late fifteenth-century prayers.
Published: J. Varley, Lincolnshire Archives Committee, Archivist’s Report, no. 9 (1957-58), pp.17-18.
N.R. Ker, The Parochial Libraries of the Church of England (1959), p. 2 (facing the title-page).
Fine Books and Book Collecting, A.G. Thomas festschrift (1981), p. 1.
C. de Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts (1986), p. 185.
C. Donovan, The de Brailes Hours, 1991, p. 167, n. 136.
P.E. Raes, ‘He That Stelles Thes Boke’, På sporet af Gamle Bibler (1995), pp.180-88.
C. de Hamel, review of Duffy, Marking the Hours, in New York Review of Books, LIV, 15 February 2007, p. 44.
B.A. Henisch, The Medieval Cook, 2009, p. 20.
£12,000-18,000
Lot 66
74 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 75 67 θ Giovanni Scala, Deffinitioni bellisime di geometrica, in Italian, manuscript with illustrations and a volvelle, on paper [Italy (probably Lucca or Rome), probably c. 1585]
34 leaves (plus a single endleaf at back, now with numerous observations and exercises on square roots added in Todi in the early seventeenth century), complete, collation: i8, ii9 (last a singleton), iii7 (single smaller leaf of a few decades later bound in at front: fol. 18), iv8, v2, text in a single column of a good Italian italic hand, up to 23 lines, numerous small diagrams on almost every page, some openings with more complex diagrams of three dimensional shapes, drawings of lines of perspective used for calculations from towers and walls, trees and a building with columns, a working volvelle (fol. 27r), complex watermark of crossed keys inside a shield beneath a fleur-de-lys and the whole surmounted by a 6-pointed star (identical to Briquet 1158: see below), edges of paper frayed and bumped, first leaf discoloured at edges, some spots and stains throughout from use, overall fair and solid condition, 295 by 220mm.; early limp parchment binding, repaired at spine with white leather, cockled and stained, and probably restored and refreshed in modern period
A hitherto unrecorded copy of this treatise on geometry, the text probably composed for King Henri IV of France, and previously known only from two other witnesses
Provenance: Written around 1585, most probably in Lucca: the paperstock has a watermark identical to Briquet 1158 (Lucca 1584-85 & Rome 1591-92). The Lot 67 small distribution of the present work and the fact that this copy remained in Italy, rather than passing to Giovanni Scala’s patrons in the French court, may suggest it is his own. Certainly, it was produced during the lifetime of the author, almost certainly for someone who knew him personally.
Text: Little is known with certainty about the mathematician Giovanni Scala (1547-1600). He appears to have worked in Rome, and was patronised by Henri IV of France, to whom Scala dedicated his Delle Fortificatione, written in 1596. Of the other two recorded witnesses to this text, both survived in France (the first in Bethune and then the French royal library [an apparent authorial presentation copy, perhaps to the French monarch]: described by P. Parin, Les manuscrits françois de la Bibliothèque du Roi, III, 1840, no. 7006, p. 331, containing “Operattioni belissime di geometria”); and the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS.3536, (principally a collection of pen drawings). Scala also worked with another mathematician, Giovanni Pomodoro, on the Geometria prattica tratta dagl’Elementi d’Euclide (1599).
The text here has never been thoroughly studied or edited, and the present manuscript may well be autograph.
£4,000-6,000
76 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 77 Lot 68
68 θ A Sienese chronicle from 1238 to 1466, in Italian, illustrated manuscript on paper [Italy (Siena), c. 1600] Lot 69 41 leaves (including 23 blank leaves at end), textually complete, collation: i-ii12, iii6, iv8, v3 (wants a single cancelled blank), written leaves with foliation in main hand, chronicle entries in shaky and scrawling Italian hand in a single column on right hand side of pages, with penwork diagrams 69 θ of the fortifications of the San Maurizio wall, a set of arms in trick, a Gothic portico and the Via di Citta, watermarks of a head within a circle and a Two volumes containing collections of mottos and notes on ethics, in Italian, manuscripts on paper with a noble Italian heraldic eagle with crown (close to Piccard 20,004-05, common to much of Italy c. 1600), small spots, but overall in excellent condition, 256 by 172mm.; provenance [Italy, late sixteenth century] contemporary or near-contemporary archival binding of parchment over pasteboards with two large rectangular leather supports stitched around spine and over boards (some stitching of upper band around spine wanting), scrawled penwork title of same date on spine Two volumes: (a) on mottos, 128 leaves (including numerous blanks), contemporary foliation (but omitting first few leaves), the mottos collected together under headings specifying type (such as “Motti adulanti”, “Motti faceto e burleschi” or “Motti crudeli e tirannici”) with notes on their armorial The text here begins with the foundation of the Palazzo Cinughi in 1238, and ends soon after the arrival of Emperor Sigismond in the city in owners; (b) on ethics and character traits, 126 leaves, with entries in identical format, index at front; both with small spots and smudges, overall good 1432, concentrating on the architecture, social and economic life, and the principal noble families and the politics of Siena. It is divided into condition, each 300 by 210mm., both in contemporary limp parchment bindings with cloth tags on boards three sections, from 1238-1241, then after a break of some years 1343-1398 and finally 1371-1446, with the final section identified as the work of Severo Berini. Some of the entries are similar enough to a now-lost codex published by the Canon Manucci in 1922 (Bulletino Senese di Storia From the library of the scribe and Italian nobleman, Giovanni Luca Chiavari (1573-1657), doge of Genova in 1627-29: his armorial inkstamp at Patria, XXIX, 1922, p. 88 onwards), to suggest what he consulted was, in part, the exemplar of this manuscript. front of each volume. He may well be the scribe here, or at the least the compiler, if he began these as a young man.
£1,500-2,000 £2,000-3,000
78 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 79 Lot 71 71 θ History and Statutes of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, in Italian, manuscript on paper [Italy (probably Rome), mid-seventeenth century]
118 leaves (plus a blank paper endleaf at front and back), complete, collation: i10, ii14, iii10, iv14, v10, vi14, vii10, viii-x12, every leaf with a catchword, single column of 20 lines of an elegant italic hand with numerous penwork cadels and flourishes, watermark a small crescent with a tri-lobed flower emerging from it (similar in its components, but not their arrangement, to E. Heawood, Watermarks, 1950, nos. 863-64: recorded Venice, 1610 and 1686), occasional ink blotches and a single smudge, a few small spots to edges of first leaf, else in outstanding condition, 200 by 145mm.; contemporary limp parchment binding, tooled with gilt floral frame and foliate cornerpieces, all around a tiny central cabochon with a detailed stag’s head ‘caboshed’, spine in 5 compartments with a single flower head with trilobed petals in each, perhaps by the so-called ‘Borghese binder’ who worked in the Soresini Lot 70 bindery in Rome (founded in 1570, fl. through to early years of seventeenth century), some surface scratches to front board, both boards with slight 70 θ cockling, remains of two green silk ties, gilt edges Li avvenimenti delli straccioni occorso nella città di Lucca l’anno 1531, in Italian, manuscript on paper [Italy (probably Lucca), c. 1640] Provenance: Produced for an Italian member of the Order, probably as a fine copy gifted to him on his election. The presence of the stag’s head ‘caboshed’ 18 leaves (plus 2 early twentieth-century endleaves at each end), complete: a single quire, remains of contemporary foliation, catchwords at foot of every in the centre of the binding where one might have expected a coat-of-arms might indicate the original owner. This was a rare armorial device page, single column of 22 lines of italic hand, title in larger version of same, blue marbled doublures and pastedowns, some stains and minor inkburn in Italy, but was used by the Ubaldini family. throughout, first leaf weakening where it joins text-block with some wear holes there, overall good and presentable condition, 215 by 160mm., early twentieth-century blue cloth over thin pasteboards, spine with “B.H” and “Lucca 1531 Li Avvenimenti delli Straccioni” in gilt, edges bumped, few small Text: spots Following the capture of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre - the very epicentre of Christian devotion on earth - by the forces of the First Crusade in 1099, the Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre were formed to guard and take care of the church along with a military Provenance: detachment named the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. Together these two small groups formed the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre From the library of Bernard Sancholle-Henraux (d. 1931), owner of Monte Altissimo and the largest mining company there, who supplied of Jerusalem, one of the oldest chivalric orders (papal recognition from 1113, and Hugues de Payens was most probably a member before marble to the Tzars, the America sculptor Hiram Powers and the Vatican, among others: his printed bookplate on front pastedown and in his founding the Knights Templar). Following an attempt to merge the Order with the Knights Hospitaller, in 1496 the independent status of the binding with his initials (see above). Order was confirmed by Pope Alexander VI and their headquarters moved to the Pallazzo Della Rovere in Rome, a fifteenth-century papal palace adjacent to the Vatican. Text: The text here is a detailed account of the revolt of the silk producers of Lucca in 1531-32 (the ‘revolt of the Straccioni’: on which see C. Shaw, This volume is divided into two sections: (i) pp. 1-89, opening with “Si tratta delle particolarita del Sacro Ordine ...”, a thorough history of the ‘The price of Charles V’s protection in Italy: The example of Lucca’, Estudios de Historia de España, 10, 2008, pp. 137-164, and R. Sabbatini, La Order, followed by a lengthy rendition of its statutes and the moral obligations of its members; and (ii) pp. 89-237, opening with “De i Giuditij sollevazione degli Straccioni. Lucca 1531. Politica e mercato, 2020). In 1531 measures to reduce production of cloth there produced protests from o siano Tribunali dell’ordine Gierosolimitano”, on the trials and tribunals of the Order, and its internal structures and offices from the Grand silk weavers. The measures were withdrawn, but the unrest rumbled on, and in the growing climate of fear the wealthier merchant families Master downwards (noting the date ‘1636’ on fol. 220v). asked Emperor Charles V to intervene. An imperial envoy was sent to the city and the leaders of the revolt cornered in a house and arrested in April 1532. The present account is unpublished and otherwise unrecorded. £3,000-5,000
£1,000-1,500
80 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 81 72 θ Pierre Albert de Launay, Remarques sommaires faites sur la maison d’Aerssen, in French, Latin and Dutch, a de luxe manuscript produced for Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck, the first governor of Surinam, on paper [Northern Netherlands (North Brabant), dated 26 August 1684, and probably also 1688 and immediately after]
57 leaves (plus 2 endleaves at front and 4 at back), complete, single column of 25 lines in a professional hand (some sections italic), titles in simple capitals, major initials in gold with gold foliage on blue grounds, frontispiece with large architectural inscription within female figures who hold the rod of Asclepius and the scales of justice, and cornucopia, arms of van Aerssen at head (with three helms and an ornamental collar) and another somewhat oxidised crowned coat-of-arms at foot (most probably those of St. André Montbrun, over which the family from Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck onwards held a marquisate), one large two-page map in pen and colour wash, eight pages of coats-of-arms in colour, nine fine drawings of seals and a tomb in pen and colour wash, one double-page opening of coloured and illuminated arms arranged in genealogical tree, seal covered with paper on last page, a few loose leaves neatly rejoined to volume, a few spots and stains, but overall in excellent condition and on heavy paper, 436 by 282mm.; bound in contemporary green patterned silk over pasteboards, gilt edges (some wear to edges, and old repair to binding), prints of Cornelis van Aerssen (1545-1627), and his father Francois van Aerssen (1572-1641), both by “A. Schouman”, loosely inserted in volume (but note these members of this family not associated with content of this book), along with a Dutch newspaper article (Algemeen Handelsblad, 3 August 1963) on Cornelius van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck (1637-88)
A fine seventeenth-century manuscript principally produced for an important member of the Dutch nobility, who served as first governor of Surinam in the Dutch Guianas; in outstanding condition and still in its contemporary green silk covered binding
Provenance: 1. Produced on commission for Pierre Albert de Launay (d. 1694), the Brabant Herald of Arms, for presentation to Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck (1637-88): details recorded in inscription in cartouche on frontispiece, and with the completion date, de Launay’s official seal on p. 96 and signatures at end of some sections. Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck, lord of Sommelsdijk, Bommel, de Plaat and Spijk (in Zuid-Holland and Gelderland), was a prominent member of one of the wealthiest families of the ‘Golden Age’ of Netherlandish history. He was fundamental in the founding of the Surinam Society (a private trade company), and was elected by the West-India Company and the city of Amsterdam as the first governor of the colony of Surinam (founded 1667, gaining independence in 1975) in the Dutch Guianas. He left Europe in 1683 for Paramaribo. He is remembered as an authoritarian but efficient governor, and was killed by a band of mutinous Dutch soldiers in 1688, during an argument over alleged poor food and wages. As this volume specifically addresses him at the opening of the text as “Corneille D’Aerssen ... Seigneur en partie de Surinam, Gouverneur & Capitaine General de toute de Colonie” and its closing address is dated 1684, it may have been commissioned as a gift to honour his appointment as governor. However, the arms at the head of the frontispiece are Lot 72 those of his son, François (1669-1740), and the armorial genealogy on pp. 75-76 also terminates in the arms of this figure. The research for the volume may have taken some years, and it was perhaps not complete or bound when Cornelius was murdered, and it was finished for Text: Cornelius’ son. François had accompanied his father to Surinam, returning briefly to Europe in 1687, before travelling back to settle his father’s This gargantuan codex is a triumph of seventeenth-century manuscript production. It celebrates the descent of the van Aerssen family to affairs there. He then took up a post as director of the Society of Surinam. Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck and his son François, collecting together relevant accounts and documents from a wide variety of sources. After an address by de Launay, the volume includes “Remarques sommaires sur la maison d’Aerssen” (p. 1); a genealogical table 2. Still in the library of the Baron van Aerssen in 1838, when on 15 December that year it was shown to a meeting of the Belgian royal historical showing the links of the family to the house of Moers/Meurs and their dynastic founder Wallerand de Limbourgh (p. 5), followed by a tract commission (see Compte-Rendu des séances de la Commission Royale d’histoire, VII, 1844, pp. 299-300). on the same (p. 15); a hand drawn and coloured map of the Duchy of Guelders showing the holdings of the family (pp. 22-23), after the work of Nicolaes van Geelkercken, and probably copied from Joannes Janssonius (1639); extracts from an account of the nobility of Guelders in 3. Janna Carla van der Veen-Hondius (1929-2001) of Duinbeek house in Oostkapelle, Zeeland: her printed armorial bookplate affixed to front Henricus Aquilius’ printed Compendio Chronici Geldrici (Cologne, 1566; here p. 25); followed by charters apparently copied from originals in the endleaf. archives of the towns of Venlo and Nijmegen and the Cistercian abbey at Kamp/Campen, with skilfully drawn and hand-coloured depictions of their seals, parts of an armorial from the time of “Comte Reinault de Gueldres” dated 1330, with over 140 coats-of-arms in colour, and extracts 4. Sold in Christie’s, 15 July 2015, lot 35 (but there misidentified as produced for the wrong Cornelis van Aerssen) for £5625. from a martyrology of Kamp Abbey, and a drawing of the late fifteenth-century tomb of Theodore d’Aerssen and Marguerite de Carpen from the church in that monastery; an armorial tree of descent of the van Aerssen family down to François (1669-1740), the reigning head of the family in the 1680s (pp. 75-76); followed by further documents and a final address by de Launay (p. 93), dated at its end.
£4,000-6,000
82 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 83 73 Reading aid for use with Greek manuscripts, in Greek and Latin, manuscript on paper [probably Germany, late seventeenth century]
Six leaves (single quire), with entries in columns of the Greek alphabet in its majuscule and minuscule forms and transliterated letter-names in Roman characters, as well as long lists of “abbreviationes, et literarum nexus” (perhaps following those at the end of Institutiones Linguae Graecae, Cologne: Dietrich Baum, 1566), paper with chain-lines but without watermarks, corners folded in places, a few spots, else good condition, 190 by 128mm.
After the explosion of interest in studying Greek in late Renaissance Italy, and the printing of texts in it by printers such as Aldus Manutius, the subject took firm root in the intellectual centres of Europe in the seventeenth century. This booklet was most probably made for a student of the subject who had frequent recourse to manuscripts in it, and needed its lengthy columns of abbreviations. It shows no signs of ever having been bound into a larger volume, and was perhaps kept tucked inside a larger book.
£400-600
74 θ Lot 73 “In universam Aristotelis Physicam commentarii et disputationes”, “Quaestiones quae supersunt In Metaphysicam Aristotelis” and “Disputationes ad libros de celo”, a university textbook probably made for a member of the Clan Leslie, in Latin, manuscript on paper [Scotland or the Low Countries, dated 1618]
258 leaves, wanting a few single leaves throughout, a 7-leaf section from the section on the Metaphysics, as well as leaves from end, single column of approximately 52 lines of tiny script, rubrics and titles in larger versions Lot 75 of same, no apparent watermarks, section of both title-pages cut away, last leaves held in place with metal pin, some spots, stains and bumps to edges of 75 θ leaves, overall far and legible condition, 192 by 152mm.; contemporary limp Giusto de ‘Conti, La Bella Mano, following the edition of Jacopo Corbinelli, in Italian verse, manuscript on paper parchment binding with label on spine describing contents, but erroneously [Italy, seventeenth century] dating these to “XVI Cent”, binding becoming loose 68 leaves (plus a paper endleaf at front and back), single column of 25 lines of a fine Italian italic hand, contemporary foliation, lined through and Probably written for, and by, a student in the Low Countries in the illegible contemporary ownership inscription on frontispiece, some inkburn throughout, stains to edges of leaves, upright edges of some leaves woolly in seventeenth century: dated 13 June 1618 at the opening of the section places with small losses, last endleaf torn, frontispiece once held in place with tape, leaving marks there, spots and marks, but overall fair and legible, 128 on Aristotle’s Metaphysics. The contemporary ex libris marks of “A.L. by 90mm.; later parchment binding over pasteboards, title in ink on spine Leslie” (the initials part of an elaborate monogram and uncertain) and “Monsieur Leslie” (fol. 122r) indicate the volume was used by a member Giusto de ‘Conti was a servant of Pope Eugenius IV and Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta in Rimini, as well as one of the most important of the Clan Leslie, who in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries sent composers in the Italian language in the fifteenth century. This work, his magnum opus, was composed c. 1440 in Bologna, and is made up many of their young men to the Continent, notably the Low Countries, from 150 sestina verses. It takes up the theme of the worship of a mysterious female figure from Petrarch, focussing here on Isabeta (perhaps to for a Catholic education. This book may have been produced in Scotland honour Elisabetta Bentivoglio). It was published first in 1472 in Bologna by Scipione Malpigli, but this copy follows the 1589 edition of Jacopo before its owner travelled, or in his destination. It evidently returned Corbinelli. with him to Scotland, and comes now from a British collection. £400-600 £300-500 Lot 74
84 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 85 Lot 76
76 θ Leandro Fernández de Moratín, La Mojigata, Comedia en tres actos, a play in Spanish, presentation copy from the author to Baroness Holland, manuscript on paper [Spain, 1804 or immediately before]
86 leaves, complete, collation i7, ii-viii10, ix9 (binding too tight to allow further collation, but text continuous), unfoliated but quires numbered, single column of approximately 27 lines in an italic hand, numerous stage directions, watermark of horse and inscription “ANTo BARBAROSA”, purple marbled doublures and pastedowns, small spots and stains, else excellent condition, 228 by 165mm.; early nineteenth-century white pigskin by Charles Meyer (his small yellow label affixed to endleaf; d. 1809, royal bookbinder of St. Martins Lane, London), blindstamped with vertical garlands and rows of small dots, some surface dirt, else robust condition
An important copy of this work, containing the only unexpurgated version of it, and perhaps the only copy approved of by the author Lot 76
Provenance: 1. Copied for, or even by, the author of the work, perhaps intended for use as a stage copy (see Kitts, 2006, p. 9, noting 18 stage directions Text: here not found anywhere else), and then presented to Elisabeth Vassall Fox (1771-1845), Baroness Holland, during a meeting in Madrid in La Mogigata is a neo-Classical tale of hypocrisy and false devotion, which had its measure of popularity in the last decades of the eighteenth the summer of 1804: lengthy pen inscription on front endleaf most probably in hand of Baroness Holland herself. Thereafter in her library at century and the opening ones of the nineteenth century. However, sufficient differences exist between the seven extant manuscripts of the Holland House, Kensington (the meeting place of the ‘Holland House set’ including the Prince of Wales, Whig politicians, Sheridan, Byron, play (listed by Kitts, 2006, p. 7) and the printed version that appeared in 1804, to conclude that it was censored by the author, removing Dickens and Wordsworth): printed armorial bookplate pasted to front pastedown. Described as an “imperious battle axe”, she dominated references to scandal and criticisms of the Church “for fear of giving offence to the devotees” (in the words of the inscription at the front the men in her life, travelled widely and added significantly to the library at Holland House. Her journal survives in the British Library, with of this witness). The present manuscript contains the only known ‘full’ version of the text, with 550 lines not found elsewhere. The play Additional MS 51931, fol. 110v recording the meeting with Moratín, and describing him as “at present the best and most distinguished poet had existed in some form since the 1790s, and had been performed in private settings and provincial theatres in the closing decades of the and man-of-letters in Spain”. On 16 August, she also records going to the opening of the Coliseo de la Cruz in Madrid to see a new play of eighteenth century, with its author referring to the many revisions and alterations made to it. However, these versions appear to have been Moratín’s named the Mogigata. This volume presumably lay in her lap as she watched its public performance. On the death of her husband swept away and destroyed when the shortened version was produced for its first performance in May 1804 (the second performance in their line went extinct, and the house passed to the Earls of Ilchester. It was bombed during the Blitz in 1940 and was hit by 22 incendiary August attended by Baroness Holland). The fact that the author himself presented an unexpurgated copy to Baroness Holland between the bombs in a single raid, with the house itself nearly destroyed but the library sustaining only slight damage. Sales then began soon after, with dates of these two performances suggests he was not yet satisfied by its final form, making this apparently the only witness to the format of Hodgson & Co. of London, on 10 July 1947 (‘Rare and Beautiful Books saved from the Holland House Library’), with three sales following in the work approved by the author. 1947-8, and Sotheby’s holding seven further sales in 1962-3 (see L.J. Gorton in British Museum Quarterly, 29, 1965, p. 78, n. 30 & 32). Published: 2. Book dealership of H.P. Kraus of New York, their R6731, appearing in cat. 196, Spain, Portugal, and their Overseas Empires (1994), no. 116, and S.A. Kitts, ‘Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s La Mogigata: The Significance of the Holland Manuscript in the Light of Comments from again cat. 202, European Literature (1996), no. 187; acquired by the present owner from Kraus in 2002. Reported in 2002 as part of the residue Elizabeth, Lady Holland’s Spanish Journal (BL, Add. MS. 51931)’, Electronic British Library Journal, 2006 of the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps (see Kitts, 2006, p. 5), but without any of Phillipps’ marks, and in fact more probably acquired from S.A. Kitts, Leandro Fernández de Moratín, La Mogigata, edición, introducción y notas, 2015 the dispersal of the Holland House library (see also D. Hook, The Hispanic, Portuguese, and Latin American Manuscripts of Sir Thomas Phillipps, 2017, n. 532). £1,500-2,000
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Account Name: Dreweatts 1759 Ltd. A/C: 62412949, Sort Code: 60-15-07, BIC: NWBKGB2L, IBAN: EXPORT LICENCES GB21NWBK60150762412949. The name of the bank account holder should A licence from the Export Licensing Unit may be required before manuscripts, match the name of the buyer. First time buyers who are not present at the miniatures and printed books with significant manuscript additions may be saleroom are requested to pay by bank transfer. exported from the United Kingdom. Bloomsbury Auctions are more than happy to arrange this, free of charge. Depending on the import status of the Υ CITES REGULATIONS item, these generally take between 5 – 28 working days to obtain. For items Please note that lots marked with the symbol (Υ) in this catalogue may be that require such licences, we are also happy to arrange in-house shipping. For subject to CITES Regulations when exported. Relevant CITES Regulations may export licences and in-house shipping, please contact the department directly: be found at www.gov.uk/guidance/cites-imports-and-exports. Roxana Kashani COLLECTION OR DELIVERY Tel: 44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Before being able to collect your purchases you are required to pay the E-mail: [email protected] hammer price, plus the applicable commissions, and obtain a receipt acknowledging payment. Collection of the purchased lots is at the purchaser’s COMMISSION BIDS risk and expense and whilst Bloomsbury Auctions do not provide packing and Bloomsbury Auctions will execute bids on your behalf if you are unable to despatch services we can suggest some carriers. attend the sale. Commission or absentee bids are accepted either directly at reception, or can be sent by post, fax, email, telephone or via the website: FURTHER INFORMATION www.bloomsburyauctions.com. The colours printed in this catalogue are not necessarily a true reflection of the actual item. All weights and measures given in the catalogue should be Bloomsbury Auctions will add these bids to the auctioneers’ sale book and will regarded as approximate. undertake to purchase the lots on your behalf as cheaply as allowed by other bids and reserves. If two buyers submit identical commission bids Bloomsbury VALUATION SERVICES Auctions may prefer the first bid received. Bloomsbury Auctions provides a range of confidential and professional valuation services to private clients, solicitors, executors, estate managers, Bloomsbury Auctions does not accept liability for failing to execute trustees and other professional partners. These services include auction commission bids, or for any errors or omissions. FINE JEWELLERY, SILVER, WATCHES AND OBJECTS OF VERTU valuations, insurance valuations, probate valuations, private treaty valuations, CONDITION valuations for family division or for tax purposes. For more information, please 25 NOVEMBER 2020 | 10.30am Bidders must satisfy themselves as to the condition of each lot. Inspection of see our website: www.bloomsburyauctions.com. lots is strongly recommended. Condition reports are available on request - see ANNUAL CATALOGUE SUBSCRIPTIONS the Conditions of Business at the back of the printed catalogue forming part of +44 (0) 1635 553 553 | [email protected] A late 1930s diamond and AUCTION LOCATION ENQUIRIES these Auction Terms and Conditions for more information regarding condition enamel safari bracelet attributed Dreweatts Jewellery Department reports. Requests for condition reports must be submitted by 4pm on the BLOOMSBURY AUCTIONS to Charlton & Co., circa 1937 Donnington Priory +44 (0) 1635 553 553 day prior to the auction; condition reports may be available alongside the lot 16-17 Pall Mall, St James’s, London SW1Y 5LU Newbury [email protected] description on the online catalogue at: www.bloomsburyauctions.com. Please Opening hours: Monday – Friday, 9.30am – 5.30pm Est £8,00-12,000 (+ fees) Berkshire RG14 2JE Catalogue, viewing details and free online bidding at: dreweatts.com 89 Information for Buyers at Public Auctions Terms of Consignment for Sellers in Public Auctions 1. INTRODUCTION. The following notes are intended to assist Bidders and as the auctioneers, accept any responsibility for their condition. In particular, Buyers, particularly those inexperienced or new to our salerooms. All of mechanical objects of any age are not guaranteed to be in working order. The sale of goods at our public auctions and a seller’s relationship with us 10. ELECTRICAL ITEMS. These are subject to detailed statutory safety controls. are governed by our Auction Terms and Conditions including these Terms of Where such items are accepted for sale you accept responsibility for the cost of our auctions and sales are conducted on our printed Auction Terms and However, in so far as we have examined the goods and make a representation Consignment for Sellers in Public Auctions and our Conditions of Sale for Public testing by external contractors. Goods not certified as safe by an electrician (unless Conditions, including these Conditions of Sale and Business, which are readily about their condition in the auction catalogue, we shall be liable for any defect Auctions. Any particular auction and/or any particular lot in an auction may be subject antiques) will not be accepted for sale. They must be removed at your expense on available for inspection and normally accompany catalogues. Our staff will be which is not reflected in that representation and which that examination ought to different or additional terms which will be published in our auction catalogue your being notified. We reserve the right to dispose of unsafe goods as refuse, at happy to help you if there is anything you do not fully understand. to have revealed to the auctioneer but which would not have been revealed or separately announced prior to the auction. All auctions and sales of wines and your expense. Any particular auction and/or any particular lot in an auction may be subject to to the buyer had the buyer examined the goods. Additionally, in specified spirits, jewellery, watches and clocks are subject to the special terms set out in the 11. SOFT FURNISHINGS. The sale of soft furnishings is strictly regulated by statute relevant Notices in relation to those items published in our auction catalogue and, in different or additional terms which will be published in our auction catalogue. circumstances lots misdescribed because they are ‘deliberate forgeries’ may law in the interests of fire safety. Goods found to infringe safety regulations will be returned and repayment made. There is a 3 week time limit. (The expression the event of any conflict or inconsistency, those special terms prevail over any other not be offered and must be removed at your expense. We reserve the right to All auctions and sales of wines and spirits, jewellery, watches and clocks are terms in our Auction Terms and Conditions. Please note that our Auction Terms and subject to the special terms set out in the relevant Notices in relation to those ‘deliberate forgery’ is defined in our Conditions of Sale). dispose of unsafe goods as refuse, at your expense. The rights of disposal referred Conditions including these Terms of Consignment for Sellers in Public Auctions and to in clause 10 and 11 are subject to the provisions of The Torts (Interference with items published in our auction catalogue and, in the event of any conflict or 7. ELECTRICAL GOODS. These are sold as ‘antiques’ only and if bought for use our Conditions of Sale for Public Auctions relate to auctions held in our salerooms Goods) Act 1977. inconsistency, those special terms prevail over any other terms in our Auction must be checked over for compliance with safety regulations by a qualified and we have separate terms and conditions for our online auctions. Terms and Conditions. By bidding at the auction, you agree to be bound by electrician before use. 12. DESCRIPTION. Please assist us with accurate information as to the provenance, If you, or another person acting on your behalf, provide goods to us to sell on lawful import etc. of goods where this is relevant. There is strict liability for the these terms. 8. EXPORT OF GOODS. Buyers intending to export goods should ascertain your behalf at one of our auctions this signifies that you agree to and will comply accuracy of descriptions under modern consumer legislation and in some with our Auction Terms and Conditions including these Terms of Consignment for circumstances responsibility lies with sellers if inaccuracies occur. We will assume 2. AGENCY. As auctioneers we usually act as agents for the seller whose (a) whether an export licence is required and (b) whether there is any specific Sellers in Public Auctions and our Conditions of Sale for Public Auctions. identity, for reasons of confidentiality, is not normally disclosed. Accordingly if prohibition on importing goods of that character because, e.g. they may that you have approved the catalogue description of your lots and that your lots contain prohibited materials such as ivory. Ask us if you need help. 1. INTERPRETATION. In these Terms the words ‘you’, ‘yours’, etc. refer to the Seller match those descriptions unless informed to the contrary. Where we are obliged to you buy at auction your contract for the item or items purchased is with the and if the consignment of goods to us is made by an agent or otherwise on the seller and not with us as the auctioneer. return the price to the buyer when the lot is a deliberate forgery under Condition 9. BIDDING. Bidders will be required to register before the sale commences Seller’s behalf we assume that the Seller has authorised the consignment and that 15 of the Conditions of Sale and we have accounted to you for the proceeds of sale 3. ESTIMATES. Estimates are designed to help buyers gauge what sort of and lots will be invoiced to the name and address on the sale registration form. the consignor has the Seller’s authority to contract. All obligations that apply to the you agree to reimburse us the sale proceeds and in any event within 7 days of our sum might be involved for the purchase of a particular lot. Estimates may Bidders are required to provide a government issued identity document and Seller under these Terms of Consignment for Sellers in Public Auctions shall apply written notice to do so. change and should not be thought of as the sale price. The lower estimate a proof of address. Please enquire in advance about our arrangements for to the owner of the goods and their agent jointly and separately. Similarly the words ‘we’, ‘us’, etc. refer to the Auctioneers. 13. UNSOLD. If an item is unsold it may at our discretion be re-offered at a future may represent the reserve price and certainly will not be below it. Estimates telephone bidding. sale. Where in our opinion an item is unsaleable you must collect such items from 2. WARRANTY. The Seller warrants that possession in the lots can be transferred do not include the Buyer’s Premium or VAT (where chargeable). Estimates are 10. COMMISSION BIDDING. Commission bids may be left with the the saleroom promptly on being so informed. Otherwise, storage charges may be prepared some time before the sale and may be altered by announcement to the Buyer with good and marketable title, free from any third party right and incurred. We reserve the right to charge for storage in these circumstances at a auctioneers indicating the maximum amount to be bid excluding buyers’ encumbrances, claims or potential claims. The Seller has provided all information reasonable daily rate. before the sale. They are in no sense definitive. premium. Dreweatts will add these bids to the auctioneers’ sale book and concerning the item’s ownership, condition and provenance, attribution, 4. BUYER’S PREMIUM. The Conditions of Sale forming part of our Auction they will be executed as cheaply as possible having regard to the reserve (if authenticity, import or export history and of any concerns expressed by third 14. WITHDRAWN AND BOUGHT IN ITEMS. These are liable to incur a charge of parties concerning the same. 15% commission, 1.5 % Loss and Damage Warranty and any other costs incurred Terms and Conditions require the buyer to pay a buyer’s premium on the any) and competing bids. If two buyers submit identical commission bids the including but not limited to illustration and restoration fees all of these charges hammer price of each lot purchased. The buyer’s premium is 25% of the auctioneers may prefer the first bid received. Please enquire in advance about 3. ALL COMMISSIONS and fees are subject to VAT at the prevailing rate. being subject to VAT on being bought in or withdrawn after being catalogued. our arrangements for the leaving of commission bids by telephone or fax. hammer price up to and including £500,000, 20% of the hammer price from 4. COMMISSION is charged to sellers and all selling terms are available from our 15. CONDITIONS OF SALE. You agree that all goods will be sold on our Conditions £500,001 up to and including £1,000,000, and 12% of the hammer price in Dreweatts does not accept liability for failing to execute commission bids, or salerooms. of Sale for Public Auctions. In particular you undertake that you have the right to sell excess of £1,000,000. VAT at the prevailing rate of 20% is added to buyer’s for any errors or omissions. 5. REMOVAL COSTS. Items for sale must be consigned to the saleroom by any the goods either as owner or agent for the owner with good and marketable title premium and additional charges as defined below. 11. METHODS OF PAYMENT. Payment will be accepted, if you are a successful stated deadline and at your expense. We may be able to assist you with this process and free and clear of any third party rights or claims. You undertake to compensate 5. VAT. A theta symbol (θ) indicates that the lot is a zero rated item and bidder, by debit card issued in the name of the Buyer by a UK bank and but any liability incurred to a carrier for haulage charges is solely your responsibility. us and any buyer or third party for all losses liabilities, costs and expenses suffered therefore not subject to VAT on the buyer’s premium. This applies to bound registered to a UK billing address; by all major UK issued credit cards issued 6. LOSS AND DAMAGE OF GOODS or incurred arising out of or in connection with any breach of this undertaking. We (a) Loss and Damage Warranty - Dreweatts is not authorised by the FCA to will also, at our discretion, and as far as practicable, confirm that an item consigned books (manuscripts and printed), unframed maps and albums. A dagger in the name of the Buyer and registered to a UK billing address with the for sale does not appear on the Art Loss register, which is administered by an symbol (†) indicates that VAT is payable by the purchaser at the standard exception of American Express and Diners Club; by bank transfer direct into provide insurance to its clients, and does not do so. However Dreweatts for its own protection assumes liability for property consigned to it at the lower pre-sale independent third party. rate (presently 20%) on the hammer price as well as being and element our bank account, Bank Details: NatWest, 30 Market Place, Newbury, Berkshire estimate until the hammer falls. To justify accepting liability, Dreweatts makes a 16. DUE DILIGENCE CHECKS AND ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING PROCEDURES in the buyers’ premium. This imposition of VAT is likely to be because the RG14 5AG. Account Name: Dreweatts 1759 Ltd. A/C: 62412949, Sort Code: 60- charge of 1.5% of the hammer price plus VAT, subject to a minimum charge of Under the money laundering regulations in force we are required to carry out seller is registered for VAT within the European Union and is not operating 15-07, BIC: NWBKGB2L, IBAN: GB21NWBK60150762412949. The name of the £1.50, or if unsold 1.5% of our lower estimate. The liability assumed by Dreweatts relevant due diligence checks. This includes verifying the identity of all customers the Dealers Margin Scheme or because VAT is due at 20% on import into bank account holder should match the name of the buyer. First time buyers shall be limited to the lower pre-sale estimate or the hammer price if the lot is sold. we transact with as well as any beneficial owners on behalf of whom they may the UK. A double dagger (‡) indicates that the lot has been imported from who are not present at the saleroom are requested to pay by bank transfer. Dreweatts is not liable for damage to gilded picture frames, plaster picture frames transact. Vendors who are unable to or refuse to supply required identification or picture frame glass; if the Lot is or becomes dangerous, we may dispose of it outside the European Union and the present position is that these lots are 12. COLLECTION AND STORAGE. Please note what the Conditions of Sale documents and proof of address will not be able to consign to Dreweatts auctions. liable to a reduced rate of Import VAT currently 5% on the hammer price. (Ω) without notice to you in advance in any manner we see fit and will be under no Copies of customer due diligence checks will be stored for as long as it is necessary state about collection and storage. It is important that goods are paid for and liability for doing so. indicates that the lot has been imported from outside the European Union to satisfy legal requirements in an appropriate storage facility, which for the collected promptly. Any delay may involve the buyer in paying storage charges. avoidance of doubt may include storage solely in electronic form. and these lots are liable to the standard rate of Import VAT currently 20% on (b) If the owner of the goods consigned instructs us in writing not to take such 13. λ DROIT DE SUITE ROYALTY CHARGES. From 1st January 2012 all UK action, the goods then remain entirely at the owner’s risk unless and until the 17. AUTHORITY TO DEDUCT COMMISSION AND EXPENSES AND RETAIN the hammer price. Lots which appear without the above symbols indicate that property in them passes to the Buyer or they are collected by or on behalf of the no VAT is payable on the hammer price; this is because such lots are sold using art market professionals (which includes but is not limited to; auctioneers, PREMIUM AND INTEREST owner, and clause 6 (a) is inapplicable. (a) You authorise us to deduct commission at the stated rate and all expenses the Auctioneers Margin Scheme and it should be noted that the VAT included dealers, galleries, agents and other intermediaries) are required to collect a 7. ILLUSTRATIONS AND PHOTOGRAPHS. The cost of any illustrations or incurred for your account from the hammer price and consent to our right to retain within the buyers’ premium is not recoverable as input tax. royalty payment for all works of art that have been produced by qualifying artists each time a work is re-sold during the artist’s lifetime and for a period photographs is borne by you. The copyright in respect of such illustrations and beneficially the premium paid by the buyer in accordance with our Conditions of 6. DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION. Condition reports are provided on our photographs shall be the property of us, the auctioneers, as is the text of the Sale for Public Auctions and any interest earned on the sale proceeds until the date up to 70 years following the artists death. This payment is only calculated on of settlement. website or upon request. The absence of a report does not imply that a lot is qualifying works of art which are sold for a hammer price more than the UK catalogue. without imperfections. The detail in a report will reflect the estimated value sterling equivalent of EURO 1,000 – the UK sterling equivalent will fluctuate 8. MINIMUM BIDS AND OUR DISCRETION. Goods will normally be offered subject (b) In case of lots unsold at auction you authorise us at our discretion to reoffer such lots and negotiate a sale within seven days of the auction date, in which case of the lot. Large numbers of such requests received shortly before the sale in line with prevailing exchange rates. It is entirely the responsibility of the to a reserve agreed between us before the sale in accordance with clause 9. We may mean that reports cannot be provided for all lots. Members of staff are may sell Lots below the reserve provided we account to you for the same sale the same charges will be payable as if such lots had been sold at auction and so far buyer to acquaint himself with the precise EURO to UK Sterling exchange proceeds as you would have received had the reserve been the hammer price. If as appropriate these Terms apply. not trained restorers or conservators and, particularly for higher value lots, rate on the day of the sale in this regard, and the auctioneer accepts no you should obtain an opinion from such a professional. Dreweatts is not liable you specifically give us a “discretion” we may accept a bid of up to 10% below the 18. WAREHOUSING. We disclaim all liability for goods delivered to our saleroom responsibility whatsoever if the qualifying rate is different to the rate indicated. formal reserve. without sufficient sale instructions and reserve the right to make minimum for damage to gilded picture frames, plaster picture frames or picture frame All items in this catalogue that are marked with λ are potentially qualifying glass; if a Lot is or becomes dangerous, we may dispose of it without notice 9. RESERVES warehousing charge of £10 per lot per day. Unsold lots are subject to the same items, and the royalty charge will be applied if the hammer price achieved (a) You are entitled to place prior to the auction a reserve on any lot consigned, charges if you do not remove them within a reasonable time of notification. If not to bidders in advance in any manner we see fit and will be under no liability for is more than the UK sterling equivalent of EURO 1,000. The royalty charge being the minimum hammer price at which that lot may be sold. Reserves must removed within three weeks we reserve the right to sell them and defray charges doing so. We recommend that you always view a lot in person. will be added to all relevant buyers’ invoices, and must be paid before items be reasonable and we may decline to offer goods which in our opinion would be from any net proceeds of sale or at your expense to consign them to the local We are dependent on information provided by the seller about a lot and whilst can be cleared. All royalty charges are passed on to the Design and Artists subject to an unreasonably high reserve (in which case goods carry the storage authority for disposal. we may inspect lots and act reasonably in taking a general view about them Copyright Society (‘DACS’), no handling costs or additional fees with respect and loss and damage warranty charges stipulated in these Terms of Consignment). 19. SETTLEMENT. After sale settlement of the net sum due to you normally takes we are normally unable to carry out a detailed examination and frequently no to these charges will be retained by the auctioneers. The royalty charge that (b) A reserve once set cannot be changed except with our consent. place within 28 days of the sale unless the buyer has not paid for the goods. In this examination of lots in order to ascertain their condition in the way in which it will be applied to qualifying items which achieve a hammer price of more (c) Where a reserve has been set which we consider unreasonably high, an unsold case no settlement will then be made but we will take your instructions in the light would be wise for a buyer to do. Intending buyers have ample opportunity for than the UK sterling equivalent of EURO 1,000, but less than the UK sterling charge will be payable in the event that the lots fails to sell, being the agreed selling of our Conditions of Sale for Public Auctions. You authorise any sums owed by you terms calculated on the reserve, LDW at 1.5% and any photographic charges. to us on other transactions to be deducted from the sale proceeds. You must note inspection of goods and, therefore, accept responsibility for inspecting and equivalent of EURO 50,000 is 4%. For qualifying items that sell for more than the liability to reimburse the proceeds of sale to us as under the circumstances investigating lots in which they may be interested and the corresponding risk the UK sterling equivalent of EURO 50,000 a sliding scale of royalty charges (d) Where a reserve has been placed only we may bid on your behalf and only up to provided for in Condition 12 above. You should therefore bear this potential liability should they not do so. Please note carefully the exclusion of liability for the will apply – for a complete list of the royalty charges and threshold levels, the reserve (if any) and you may in no circumstances bid personally. in mind before parting with the proceeds of sale until the expiry of 28 days from condition of lots contained in the Conditions of Sale. Neither the seller nor we, please see www.dacs.org.uk. There is no VAT payable on this royalty charge. (e) Reserves are not usually accepted for lots expected to realise below £100. the date of sale.
90 www.bloomsburyauctions.com | +44 (0) 20 7839 8880 Buyer’s Premium: 25% + VAT on that premium (where applicable) 91 Conditions of Sale for Public Auctions Group Departments
Dreweatts carries on business with bidders, buyers and all (i) give to us, if requested, proof of identity, and you, or us and you, or be implied or incorporated by statute, those present in the auction room prior to or in connection common law or otherwise are excluded to the fullest extent (ii) pay to us the total amount due or in such other way as is NEWBURY CHAIRMAN with a sale by auction at our salerooms on our Auction Terms agreed by us. permitted by law. and Conditions or Public Auctions including these Conditions Dreweatts George Bailey (b) Any payments by you to us may be applied by us towards 12. AGENCY. The auctioneer normally acts as agent only and of Sale for Public Auctions and all bidders, buyers and others disclaims any responsibility for default by sellers or buyers. participating in a public auction accept that these terms apply any sums owing from you to us on any account whatever Donnington Priory to the exclusion of any terms and conditions contained in any without regard to any directions of you or your agent, whether 13. TERMS OF SALE. The seller acknowledges that Lots are Newbury MANAGING DIRECTOR expressed or implied. sold subject to the stipulations of these Conditions in their of those person’s own documents even if the same purport to Jonathan Pratt provide that that person’s own or some other terms prevail. Any (c) In order to comply with money laundering regulations entirety and on the Terms of Consignment for Public Auctions Berkshire RG14 2JE particular public auction and/or any particular lot in an auction we reserve the right to require proof of source of funds and/ as notified to the consignor at the time of the entry of the Lot. may be subject to different or additional terms which will be or confirmation of the nature and source of wealth for all 14. DESCRIPTIONS AND CONDITION Auctions, exhibitions and valuations published in our online auction catalogue. Please note that our receipts of monies from clients directly or from third parties for (a) Whilst we seek to describe lots accurately, it may be Auction Terms and Conditions including these Conditions of payments on behalf of clients. impractical for us to carry out exhaustive due diligence on each LONDON Sale for Public Auctions relate to auctions held in one of our ASIAN CERAMICS AND WORKS OF ART 7. TITLE AND COLLECTION OF PURCHASES lot. Prospective buyers are given ample opportunities to view salerooms and we have separate terms and conditions for our (a) The ownership of any Lots purchased shall not pass to you and inspect before any sale and they (and any independent Dreweatts / Bloomsbury Auctions Mark Newstead online auctions. until you have made payment in full to us of the total amount experts on their behalf) must satisfy themselves as to the 16-17 Pall Mall Dr Yingwen Tao 1. DEFINITIONS due. accuracy of any description applied to a lot. Prospective buyers In these Conditions: also bid on the understanding that, inevitably, representations St James’s (b) You shall at your own risk and expense take away any lots or statements by us as to authorship, genuineness, origin, date, London SW1Y 5LU BLOOMSBURY AUCTIONS BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS (a) “auctioneer” means the firm of Dreweatts or its authorised that you have purchased and paid for not later than 3 working age, provenance, condition or estimated selling price involve auctioneer, as appropriate; days following the day of the auction after which you shall be Dr Timothy Bolton matters of opinion. We undertake that any such opinion shall Auctions, exhibitions and valuations by appointment (b) “deliberate forgery” means an imitation made with the responsible for any removal, storage and insurance charges. be honestly and reasonably held and accept liability for opinions Camilla Previté intention of deceiving as to authorship, origin, date, age, period, (c) No purchase can be claimed or removed until it has been given negligently or fraudulently. Subject to the foregoing culture or source but which is unequivocally described in the paid for. neither we the auctioneer nor our employees or agents nor the +44 (0) 1635 553 553 Roxana Kashani seller accept liability for the correctness of such opinions and catalogue as being the work of a particular creator and which at 8. REMEDIES FOR NON-PAYMENT OR FAILURE TO COLLECT all conditions and warranties, whether relating to description, [email protected] the date of the sale had a value materially less than it would have PURCHASES BRITISH AND EUROPEAN CERAMICS AND GLASS had if it had been in accordance with the description; (a) If any Lot is not paid for in full and taken away in accordance condition or quality of lots, express, implied or statutory, are dreweatts.com (c) “hammer price” means the level of bidding reached (at with these Conditions or if there is any other breach of these hereby excluded. Dreweatts is not liable for damage to gilded Mark Newstead or above any reserve) when the auctioneer brings down the Conditions, we, as agent for the seller and on our own behalf, picture frames, plaster picture frames or picture frame glass; if Geoffrey Stafford Charles hammer; shall at our absolute discretion and without prejudice to any the Lot is or becomes dangerous, we may dispose of it without notice to you in advance in any manner we see fit and will be (d) “terms of consignment” means the stipulated terms and other rights we may have, be entitled to exercise one or more of the following rights and remedies: under no liability for doing so. This Condition is subject to the CLOCKS AND SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS rates of commission on which Dreweatts accepts instructions next following Condition concerning deliberate forgeries and from sellers or their agents; (i) to proceed against you for damages for breach of contract; applies save as provided for in paragraph 6 “information to Leighton Gillibrand (e) “total amount due” means the hammer price in respect (ii) to rescind the sale of that Lot and/or any other Lots sold buyers”. of the lot sold together with any premium, Value Added Tax by us to you; (b) Private treaty sales made under these Conditions are COUNTRY SPORTING chargeable and any additional charges payable by a defaulting (iii) to resell the Lot (by auction or private treaty) in which case deemed to be sales by auction for purposes of consumer buyer under these Conditions; you shall be responsible for any resulting deficiency in the total legislation. Geoffrey Stafford Charles (f) “sale proceeds” means the net amount due to the seller, amount due (after crediting any part payment and adding any 15. FORGERIES. Notwithstanding the preceding Condition, any being the hammer price of the lot sold less commission at the resale costs). Any surplus so arising shall belong to the seller; Lot which proves to be a deliberate forgery (as defined) may be DECORATIVE ARTS stated rate, Value Added Tax chargeable and any other amounts returned to us by you within 21 days of the auction provided it is (iv) to remove, store and insure the Lot at your expense and, in Geoffrey Stafford Charles due to us by the seller in whatever capacity and however arising; the case of storage, either at our premises or elsewhere; in the same condition as when bought, and is accompanied by particulars identifying it from the relevant catalogue description (g) “You”, “Your”, etc. refer to the buyer as identified in (v) to charge interest at a rate not exceeding 1.5% per month on Ashley Matthews Condition 2. and a written statement of defects. If we are satisfied from the the total amount due to the extent it remains unpaid for more evidence presented that the Lot is a deliberate forgery we shall (h) The singular includes the plural and vice versa as appropriate. than 3 working days after the sale; refund the money paid by you for the Lot including any buyer’s EUROPEAN SCULPTURE AND WORKS OF ART 2. BIDDING PROCEDURES AND THE BUYER (vi) to retain that or any other Lot sold to you until you pay the premium provided that (1) if the catalogue description reflected Charlotte Schelling (a) Bidders are required to register their particulars before total amount due; the accepted view of scholars and experts as at the date of sale bidding by completing a sale registration form and to satisfy (vii) to reject or ignore bids from you or your agent at future or any security arrangements before entering the auction room auctions or to impose conditions before any such bids shall be (2) you personally are not able to transfer a good and marketable ESTATES AND COLLECTIONS to view or bid; accepted; title to us, you shall have no rights under this condition. (b) Under the money laundering regulations in force we are Will Richards required to verify the identity of all customers we transact (viii) to apply any proceeds of sale of other Lots due or in The right of return provided by this Condition is additional to Joe Robinson with as well as any beneficiaries on behalf of whom they may future becoming due to you towards the settlement of the any right or remedy provided by law or by these Conditions of transact. Customers who are unable to or refuse to supply total amount due and to exercise a lien (that is a right to retain Sale. required identification documents and proof of address will possession of) any of your property in our possession for any 16. PRIVACY NOTICE. We will hold and process any personal FINE ART not be able to bid in Dreweatts auctions. Copies of customer purpose until the debt due is satisfied. data in relation to you in accordance with our current privacy due diligence checks will be stored for as long as it is necessary (b) We shall, as agent for the seller and on our own behalf policy, a copy of which is available on our website www. Jennie Fisher to satisfy legal requirements in an appropriate storage facility pursue these rights and remedies only so far as is reasonable dreweatts.com/privacy-policy/. Brandon Lindberg to make appropriate recovery in respect of breach of these which for the avoidance of doubt may include storage solely GENERAL conditions. Lucy Darlington in electronic form; 17. We shall have the right at our discretion, to refuse admission (c) the maker of the highest bid accepted by the auctioneer 9. THIRD PARTY LIABILITY. All bidders, buyers and other to our premises or attendance at our auctions by any person. Francesca Whitham members of the public on our premises are there at their own conducting the sale shall be the buyer at the hammer price 18. (a) Any right to compensation for losses liabilities and risk and must note the lay-out of the accommodation and and any dispute about a bid shall be settled at the auctioneer’s expenses incurred in respect of and as a result of any breach security arrangements. Accordingly neither the auctioneer FURNITURE AND CARPETS absolute discretion by reoffering the Lot during the course of of these Conditions and any exclusions provided by them shall nor our employees or agents shall incur liability for death or the auction or otherwise. The auctioneer shall act reasonably in be available to the seller and/or the auctioneer as appropriate. Ben Brown exercising this discretion. personal injury or for the safety of the property of persons (b) Such rights and exclusions shall extend to and be deemed to Ashley Matthews (d) Bidders shall be deemed to act as principals; visiting prior to or at a sale (except in each case as may be required by law by reason of our negligence) be for the benefit of employees and agents of the seller and/or (e) Our right to bid on behalf of the seller is expressly reserved William Turkington 10. COMMISSION BIDS. Whilst prospective buyers are strongly the auctioneer who may themselves enforce them. up to the amount of any reserve and the right to refuse any bid advised to attend the auction and are always responsible for 19. Any notice to any buyer, seller, bidder or viewer may be given is also reserved. any decision to bid for a particular Lot and shall be assumed by first class mail, email or Swiftmail in which case it shall be JEWELLERY, SILVER, WATCHES AND OBJECTS OF VERTU 3. INCREMENTS. Bidding increments shall be at the auctioneer’s to have carefully inspected and satisfied themselves as to its deemed to have been received by the addressee 48 hours after James Nicholson sole discretion. condition, we will if so instructed clearly and in writing execute posting. Nick Mann 4. THE PURCHASE PRICE. The buyer shall pay the purchase bids on their behalf. Neither the auctioneer nor our employees 20. Special terms may be used in catalogue descriptions of price together with a premium thereon of 30% which shall or agents shall be responsible for any failure to do so. particular classes of items in which case the descriptions must Tessa Parry include VAT on the premium at the rate imposed by law. The Where two or more commission bids at the same level are be interpreted in accordance with any glossary appearing at the buyer will also be liable for any royalties payable under Droit de recorded we reserve the right in our absolute discretion to commencement of the catalogue. LIVE STEAM AND MODEL ENGINEERING WORKS OF ART Suite as set out under Information for Buyers. prefer the first bid so made. 21. Any indulgence extended to bidders, buyers or sellers by us 5. VALUE ADDED TAX. Value Added Tax on the hammer price is 11. WARRANTY OF TITLE AND AVAILABILITY. The seller notwithstanding the strict terms of these Conditions or of the Michael Matthews imposed by law on all items affixed with a dagger (†) or double warrants to the auctioneer and you that the seller is the true Terms of Consignment shall affect the position at the relevant dagger (‡). Value Added Tax is charged at the appropriate rate owner of the property consigned or is properly authorised by time only and in respect of that particular concession only; in prevailing by law at the date of sale and is payable by buyers the true owner to consign for sale and is able to transfer good all other respects these Conditions shall be construed as having WINE of relevant Lots. (Please refer to “Information for Buyers” for a and marketable title to the property free from any third party full force and effect. Mark Robertson brief explanation of the VAT position). claims. 22. These Conditions shall be governed by and construed in Dianne Wall 6. PAYMENT Save as expressly set out above, all other warranties, conditions accordance with English law and the parties irrevocably submit (a) Immediately a Lot is sold you will: or other terms which might have effect between the Seller and to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.
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